


Two-Headed Boy

by strangestorys



Series: Gentle Dom Will [1]
Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Aftercare, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, BDSM, Bathing/Washing, Belts, Blow Jobs, Bottom Hannibal, Bottoming from the Top, Canon-Typical Gore, Consensual, Cuddling & Snuggling, Discipline, Dom Will, Gentle Dom Will, Hallucinations, Intercrural Sex, Kink Negotiation, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, Light Sadism, M/M, Masochism, Masturbation, Mutual Masturbation, Post-Episode: s03e13 The Wrath of the Lamb, Post-Finale, Praise Kink, Relationship Negotiation, Spanking, Sub Hannibal, entirely too many tense breakfast scenes, scar love, sexually charged gardening
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-21
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-06-03 12:42:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 37,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6611071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangestorys/pseuds/strangestorys
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Months after the fall, Hannibal and Will are still breaking the barriers to intimacy. Will finds himself negotiating new waters and taking command in their relationship. Slow burn, light D/s themes. The long-promised Gentle Dom!Will fic. Updates more-or-less weekly, usually on Sundays.</p><p>  <i>“I think I’d like to know how you intend for me to proceed.” Hannibal was looking at him again with that expression, calculating, but not defiant. Brain ticking away without any definite direction. Just curious. “I think you’d like that too.”</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on [this Tumblr post](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com/post/135618607638/i-would-love-to-hear-your-thoughts-on-the-gentle) about Will as a gentle dom.
> 
> Hope to update weekly.

_Catching signals that sound in the dark, we will take off our clothes, and they'll be placing fingers through the notches in your spine._

\--

Hannibal, as if he had some internal clock ticking and whirring inside him, calmly closed the leather case of his tablet and placed it on the side-table between them. He stood and walked across the room towards the kitchen.

Will’s eyes followed him. His steps, though still genteel and postured, had become more relaxed since they’d moved in together. He now frequently walked with a slow casualness, often even shuffling his socked feet in the mornings as he made coffee.

“Can you bring me a glass of water while you’re up?”

Hannibal stopped for a moment, poised like a dog who has heard some far off noise, before he continued on, making no other sign he’d heard the request.

Will’s question was more an experiment than anything. They’d hardly spoken at all since the fall, through patching each other’s wounds, tying off stitches, changing bandages, helping bathe and wash hair and put on socks and any number of other things that suddenly become difficult after traumatic injury. What had there been to say? After years and years of eating at the core of each other, what do you do when you suddenly survive all that? 

Apparently, you sit silently across from each other at the breakfast table, mussed hair at all angles, dipping toast into your runny eggs, making no effort to pretend the world is the same. You go on walks around your property, together and alone, out of breath from the rolling hill on the east side, pinesap-sticky from the trees on the west. You live on top of each other, sharing beds, chairs, plates, forks, soap, undershirts, newspapers, towels, trading them back and forth with an unrehearsed ease that doesn’t feel like sharing at all.

You never talk about it. 

And so it becomes the rug under your feet, and you walk on it all day long, and it just stays there, warm.

Hannibal came back in the room, sweater smelling faintly of the leeks he’d been sauteeing for potato soup. He moved a cork coaster to the side of the table nearest Will, then placed the glass of water on the coaster. A bead of condensation rolled down and into the cork, and Hannibal sat again, opening his tablet to start reading where he’d left off.

WIll didn’t touch the water. Neither of them acknowledged it at all.

\--

A few days later, Will woke to find Hannibal still in bed, sleeping soundly to his left. Will had discovered that Hannibal was not at all averse to sleeping in; most days, however, he chose to wake before Will, doing his washing up, starting breakfast, and generally puttering around in the bronze light before dawn.

Will hadn’t known what to expect from this kind of domesticity, had certainly never intended it or planned for it in his mind. After Hannibal had dragged them both onto shore, and they lay coughing up water, they’d looked at each other, just for a moment, both sucking in air in great heaving bouts. In that second of eye contact, it was obvious that there was no alternative but this, to go on in each other’s company. They were back at zero, both knowing that the other’s death would just as surely mean their own. Companionship was a necessity, to be present in the same house, room, bed. Almost never out of sight.

 _Companionship_ with Hannibal Lecter had never been a serious practical goal for Will - even when he’d considered running away with him the first time, he’d never thought out what their days would be like, how they’d exist together. Now that it was real, and that Will had the added knowledge of Hannibal’s _love_ , he felt like they were pussyfooting around exactly what they were doing. 

His thoughts about Hannibal had never before been sexual in nature, though now when he saw Hannibal looking at him across the dinner table after hours and days of silence, he noticed how his eyes traced the curve of his lip; when they crossed paths in the bathroom in the evening, he heard how Hannibal’s breath caught, just minutely, at Will’s scent; in bed at night, where they never touched, but soaked in warmth as though the other was a fire in winter, Will felt Hannibal’s minute shifts, hands squeezing into fists with the need to hold close.

Will turned to his side, head propped up on his hand, and studied the other man. His face, so often haunted and gaunt during the day, was soft and untroubled. There was an innocence to him like this, and Will could see another life, without the murder and horror and betrayal, where Hannibal could have been different: kinder, gentler. The smile lines by his eyes were smoothed in sleep, but Will could imagine them deep and bent in laughter, his whole face lit up in joy. He’d never seen that on Hannibal before, never seen any genuine release of emotion that didn’t end with blood, and he suddenly wanted it. He wanted so badly for that person to be real, to bring back those parts of Hannibal that must exist somewhere inside.

He reached out through the invisible barrier between their sides of the bed to brush a lock of silver hair off of Hannibal’s forehead, and felt the other man shift a little before breathing deeply again, still asleep.

Will took his hand back, rolling over gently so as not to wake Hannibal as he got out of bed. He went into the bathroom to wash his face and brush his teeth, smelling Hannibal on the towel as he wiped his face dry, just as he smelled Hannibal everywhere in this house, in every room and surface and pore.

Clean and dry, he put a robe on over his pajama pants and padded downstairs to the kitchen. 

Breakfast, like most meals, was usually Hannibal’s domain, but Will liked to do his share on occasion as well. Hannibal sleeping in gave him the chance to have the quiet kitchen to himself and to think. He understood why Hannibal enjoyed working in here so much - there was a meditation to cracking eggs, whisking them, sauteeing butter. It was rote, an activity that occupied the body and allowed the mind to wander.

As he boiled water for coffee, put bacon in a pan to fry, and gathered the ingredients for pancakes, he thought on this, on how often Hannibal spent time in here, alone, focused on some task or another. It was certainly not necessary for Hannibal to cure their own ham, or dry their own herbs, or spend hours kneading yeast dough and allowing it to rise. All these things could be easily acquired at the local grocery – perhaps not to Hannibal’s standards, but with much less effort on a man who was currently recovering from a major abdominal wound.

It seemed to Will that Hannibal was making blind stabs at purpose in this new life, one that up until now had been occupied only by healing and breathing. Now that their skin was once again whole, red scars fading to pink, their days were beginning to bleed into each other; short winter evenings stretching out into longer and longer sunsets as spring came, and still no answers for what they were doing here.

Will measured flour into his mix of buttermilk and eggs, then whisked the bowl, adding a few handfuls of blueberries and chopped pecans as the lumps settled. The bacon was sizzling by now, and Will set out another pan next to it, dropping in a pat of butter to melt. He poured the first pancake and watched for the bubbles to rise around the edge, then flipped it to brown on the other side. 

He thought again about the water glass from earlier in the week. He didn’t really know why he’d pushed Hannibal in that moment. Part of it was just a need to break the haze of silence, but there was a little more there too. A bigger part just wanted to see what Hannibal would do. They freely offered themselves to each other, mutually helping out around the house as partners do, but they never explicitly asked each other for things. Will saw a small glint of something in Hannibal’s silent obedience, and it made him curious for more.

He kept on pouring, waiting, watching, again and again until he had a small stack of pancakes. He wondered about what would happen today when Hannibal came downstairs. Normally, when Hannibal rose early and did the cooking, Will would come down and find a cup of black coffee waiting for him at his spot on the table, and he would drink it while he pretended to read the paper and watched Hannibal work. If Hannibal noticed his gaze, he never showed it. It was as though they were separated by glass, each aware of the other, but unable to break through. 

WIll never asked for these small favors, but he also never turned them down when they appeared in Hannibal’s hand. Will thought about Hannibal, about how much he wanted to share and how much he held back for Will’s sake. The intimacies he denied himself, cracking through in moments like that, in warm black coffee and sleep-mussed hair.

He was just getting to the last of the batter when he heard the sound of bare feet coming down the steps. Hannibal walked in, wearing only his blue striped pajama bottoms, hair loose over his forehead and eyes still dense with sleep.

Clothing was no longer much of a barrier for them; in all the ways they’d seen and known each other, and in all the physical healing they’d done over the last weeks, it seemed like such a small thing, to know the other’s body by sight, their maps of scars and freckles and dips. While Hannibal was no stranger to Will’s body, having dressed and stitched and bathed him numerous times before, Will found himself getting to know Hannibal’s - the birthmark on the left side of his ribcage, the soft part of his belly under the navel, the odd way his pinky toe curled; the kinds of very human things one could never imagine or invent about another person unless they knew them in this way. He saw now, out of the corner of his eye, the grey in Hannibal’s chest hair, the slight slouch in his morning steps.

“Would you pour us coffee?” Will gave Hannibal a small glance.

Hannibal looked back at him, making curious eye contact for just a moment, before going over to the cabinet and pulling down two white mugs. Out of the corner of his eye, Will watched him depress the French press, fill each mug, and add a sugar cube to his own, leaving Will’s black, the way he liked it.

“I’d like cream in mine.”

Another short look between them, inscrutable, but Hannibal moved over to the refrigerator, bare feet making soft padding sounds on the tile floor, and came back to the counter with the cream, pouring until the surface of the coffee was tan and clouded.

“That’s enough. Thank you.”

Hannibal nodded and returned the cream to its spot in the refrigerator door. He then walked over to the mugs and brought them to the kitchen table, placing them in their usual spots and sitting to watch Will finish cooking.

“The bacon needs plating.”

No eye contact, but he was up again in a second, coming over to the counter next to Will to pull the bacon out of the pan with tongs and put it on the plate Will had left out. Will felt the warmth from his unclothed skin. He thought about how he might pass his hand around to rest it on the small of Hannibal’s back. He thought about how Hannibal might react. He kept his hands to himself and focused on the pancakes.

Hannibal poured the rendered fat into the mason jar under the sink to be used later, and then gathered two more plates from the cabinet.

“I didn’t ask you to set the table yet.”

As close as they were, Will felt rather than saw Hannibal’s small flinch, rippling just through his flank. Hannibal stopped, head tilted, a furrow just forming between his eyes. “Shall I put them back?”

“No, leave them where they are. Go drink your coffee.”

Hannibal did, sitting at the table and watching Will intently now, the warm mug pressed just under his nose.

Will finished flipping the last pancake and walked over to the table with the pancakes and bacon in hand. He returned to the counter to retrieve the plates Hannibal had left there on his request, and also gathered forks.

Will sat down and plated the food, an equal amount for each of them, then stopped short.

“I forgot the butter and syrup.”

Hannibal gave him a look that seemed to ask what, exactly, he planned on doing about that. It was the same look Hannibal had given him over and over again during the years they’d been close. The same look Hannibal had given him over Randall Tier’s body on his dining table in Baltimore. Will had the brief thought that maybe he’d tested this new, taut string between them a little too much already for one day, and then brushed it aside.

“They’re in the fridge, would you get them?”

“I know where they are,” Hannibal said as he stood, his tone flat, though not aggressive. Just, blank.

Hannibal brought the butter dish and syrup bottle over, placing them on the table between himself and Will. He drummed his fingers against the tabletop, just once. He looked down, avoiding Will’s eyes.

“Thank you. Eat your breakfast.”

“Am I to ask whether I may use the butter that you’ve had me retrieve?”

“What do you think?” Will asked, and he really did want to know. Where did Hannibal imagine this going? Where did Hannibal _want_ for this to go? Did Hannibal really even care where this went, as long as Will was in charge?

“I think I’d like to know how you intend for me to proceed.” Hannibal was looking at him again with that expression, calculating, but not defiant. Brain ticking away without any definite direction. Just curious. “I think you’d like that too.”

“Hmm. Butter your pancakes, Hannibal. They’re going cold.”

“Very well.” He did, and then he ate through them hungrily and methodically. Hannibal sustained an obvious delight in Will making an effort for him, cooking for him, though Will knew he would never admit this out loud. The pink flush to his cheeks said enough.

They finished their breakfast in silence, and when their plates were empty, Hannibal looked at him, drumming his fingers on the table once more, silently wondering how Will would have him continue.

“You go on, I’ll clean up.”

Hannibal nodded once at that, acknowledging the end of their small game, and left to shower and get dressed for the day. Will gathered the dishes into the sink and began to scrub them. He had a lot to think about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hang in there, we're getting to the action~
> 
> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	2. Chapter 2

After the breakfast incident, they passed the rest of the day normally; following his shower, Hannibal sat and read in the living room, while Will worked on clearing the dead ivy from the terrace over the back patio. 

This had been one of Hannibal’s safe houses, but not one that he’d ever occupied or kept up with, and it had fallen into a bit of disarray after years of sitting empty. They were high up a winding road in the Blue Ridge Mountains in North Carolina, outside the very small town of Banner Elk. It was close enough to Johnson City that they could access any goods and services they might need, but far enough from civilization that no one really took notice of their property. Already reticent to talk with each other, the thought of interacting with people in the town was a little too much for Will to handle at the moment, and he suspected Hannibal felt the same. They did the bare minimum, grocery shopping every couple of weeks for the things they couldn’t grow or hunt themselves, but otherwise stayed up on the hill.

Will had mostly occupied himself with making the exterior of the house livable and functional, while Hannibal had focused on the interiors, washing load after load of dusty sheets and towels that had gone untouched for years, chasing spiders out of the corners of the living room, and ordering newer, more updated kitchen equipment over the internet. They’d had to scrub down all the windows from inside and outside just to get sunlight into the house, a task that had taken them the better part of two days’ silent work together.

Now spring was coming, and Will hoped to have the lawn cleared enough for a big garden patch in the next few weeks. He planned to be able to grow and can enough food that they could reduce their grocery trips, and keep Hannibal busy in the kitchen besides.

\--

When Will came in from his work, sweaty and covered in little scratches from twigs and thorns, Hannibal was already in the kitchen, mulling over ingredients for dinner. He looked up from his cutting board when he heard Will enter, nostrils flaring for a brief second. His eyes had that same questioning look in them they’d carried at breakfast. 

Will caught his eye briefly before heading upstairs to shower, wondering if he imagined the grey disappointment he saw when he offered no permission for Hannibal’s evening plans.

He turned the water as hot as he could stand it, breathing the steam in deeply, clearing his mind. He scrubbed the dirt out of his curls once, and then again for good measure, mostly because the feeling of his fingers on his scalp was pleasant.

When he left the shower, he dried off with a new towel, one that didn’t smell as much like Hannibal as it did clean laundry. He slipped into a pair of khakis and a comfortable flannel, forgoing shoes, as they usually did in the house.

He came downstairs to find Hannibal almost done with dinner, a quick and simple pan-seared steak with roasted green beans and balsamic-glazed root vegetables. He noticed the table already set, a glass of whiskey at his place setting. There was exactly one ice cube in the bottom. Will sat and swirled it, watching Hannibal finish his work.

Hannibal came to the table with two plates already prepared, setting one at each of their places. He sat and looked to Will, and at Will’s small nod, began to eat. Again, they ate in silence, the clink of Will’s melting ice cube the only noise besides their knives and forks.

The steak really was delicious, and exactly what Will’s body needed after his day’s work. The effort and knowledge that Hannibal put into every meal and into every corner in this home was astounding to Will. He often knew that Will was hungry before he himself did, leaving a plate by his side with sliced apples and cheese as he napped on the sofa in the afternoon. Will wondered how Hannibal wasn’t exhausted by it all.

As Will finished and put down his fork, he was startled to hear Hannibal speak.

“Will, would you like to discuss what happened this morning?” Hannibal was looking at him with no expectation, as though he’d asked whether Will thought it might rain tomorrow.

“Is there anything you’d like to say about it?”

“I had nothing in mind.”

“Then no, I don’t think we need to discuss it right now.”

“Very well,” Hannibal inclined his head just a little in acknowledgement and got up to clear the table and clean the kitchen. Will stood by his side at the sink, taking up the towel to dry dishes as Hannibal washed them. He again felt Hannibal’s warmth radiating through his side, and he smelled him, familiar after all these years.

Afterwards, they sat in the living room together, Will working on a newspaper crossword, and Hannibal sketching the dim view from outside the windows they’d spent so long cleaning. Will could make out the railing of the patio, the great pine tree in the back, and the small red shed where he kept his tools. He guessed Hannibal must have dozens of drawings of this same view by now, at different lights of day. He wondered if Hannibal had any drawings of him in his sketchbook, and guessed that if he did, he kept them hidden.

Will reached for the table to borrow Hannibal’s tan gum eraser, needing to erase the 9-letter pizza topping “pepperoni” in favor of the much less expected “artichoke.” He put it back on the opposite side of the table, closest to Hannibal.

At 10 PM, as was their habit, they turned off the side-table lamp and headed up to bed, taking their turns in the bathroom to wash up, changing into just their pajama pants for the night. Will took his right side of the bed, Hannibal on the left, and they pulled up the crisp sheets together, a wall of space between them as always.

Will lay on his back for a long time, listening to the frogs in the yard and thinking about the day’s events. He wasn’t sure what he was doing with Hannibal any more than he had been that morning. But he did know that he’d broken their silence, at least a little, and Hannibal seemed fine with playing this little game, even eager to continue at dinner time, in his subtle way. He wondered how far Hannibal _could_ be directed, and thought about their fugue state and boredom. 

As he was just drifting off to sleep, he again felt the small fidgeting of Hannibal’s fist on the mattress next to him. Instead of ignoring it as usual, this time he rolled to his left side. He looked at Hannibal, who was lying on his back, taut as a bowstring, hands clenched, eyes shut tight, too tight to be asleep. The room was lit by the moonlight coming through the window, and Hannibal was dimly silhouetted next to him, a mirage.

Will passed his gaze over Hannibal and saw that he was hard. He wasn’t entirely surprised; he’d guessed that this had been going on since they moved in together, and likely even before that. He’d assumed that Hannibal had been taking care of his arousal privately–in the shower, or when Will was out of the house–but now he wasn’t so sure. Hannibal looked brittle and tight, like he needed release badly and hadn’t allowed it to himself in far too long.

“Hannibal.”

Hannibal opened his eyes, looking over to Will with the most trepidation Will had ever seen in him. They’d never before acknowledged the other’s presence in bed, even with everything that passed between them here, warmth and vibrations and stillness.

Hannibal maintained his eye contact with Will, face desperate and questioning. Will had known that he’d have to initiate anything that happened between them, and he’d been considering how to approach this for some time, as it seemed to him as inevitable as their fall had. A part of their lives that sat in limbo, waiting to be lived.

“What do you need, Hannibal?”

At this, Hannibal shut his eyes again and breathed out harshly through his nose, reining in some massive beast writhing inside himself.

“I don’t mind. That you want me. I know, and I don't mind.”

Hannibal’s eyes were still shut tight, his fist continuing to clench and unclench on the bed. Will reached over to grasp it and still it, holding it in his hand. This white-knuckled agitation in Hannibal was new to Will, and he understood that he was seeing something fundamental, something beyond what Hannibal had shown him before. He thought of the calm Hannibal he knew, the Hannibal who always had a task or project in front of him, the Hannibal who needed control over the spaces and people in his life. And he thought of himself, the only thing Hannibal would never be able to effectively control.

Holding onto Hannibal’s trembling hand, thinking of Hannibal’s detached, willing reaction to his string of commands at breakfast, he came to a realization that had been seeking entry through his mind’s defenses for weeks now, like water slowly eroding a rock down to sand. Hannibal was drowning here, with him, with everything he’d ever wanted in reach, and no way to attain it. He needed Will’s control. He needed Will’s _permission_.

Will reached over again, just as he had in the morning, and softly brushed the hair out of Hannibal’s eyes, fingers gentle and light. “I want you to touch yourself. Can you do that?”

Will lifted Hannibal’s hand in his and placed it on Hannibal’s belly.

“Can you do that for me?”

At that, Hannibal opened his eyes again and gave a little nod, still not making eye contact with Will, but focused on some point on the ceiling, or perhaps not even in this room or house or state, but much further away. Will let go of his hand.

“Good.”

Hannibal relaxed a little, his hand on his belly, fingers just scratching lightly, getting used to feeling himself in front of Will’s eyes. Will gave him the space to explore, knowing that this was a heady thing going on in Hannibal’s mind, sharing this locked part of himself. And sharing it with Will, when this had been so long coming and so difficult for them.

“Keep going however you’d like.”

Still, Hannibal kept his touches light and reticent, just tracing over his stomach, venturing down to the drawstring of his pants and up to his chest, breathing hard through his nose. He shuddered a little as he passed over the pink bullet scar, a tingle of healing nerves that Will knew all too well. Even in the dark of their room, Will saw how flushed his chest was. He needed this badly, and Will was surprised at just how much he wanted to give this to him.

“Hannibal. Do you want me to tell you what to do?”

Hannibal bit his bottom lip and nodded fiercely at that. He looked like he might cry, eyes again shut tight, and Will reached over again to smooth out his forehead, moving down to gently hold his cheek in his palm, whispering a soft shhing sound to him. Hannibal turned to nuzzle Will’s hand like a dog, reveling in his scent and the contact. Will allowed it for a moment, and then withdrew his hand again.

“I want you to take off your pajamas.”

Hannibal took a deep breath and seemed to calm a little at that, at being told exactly what to do. He did as Will asked, stilling immediately afterwards to wait for his next command. His cock looked painfully hard, lying thick against his belly and already leaking and red.

“Take yourself in your hand.”

Hannibal, eyes still closed, took the right hand that Will had gripped earlier, and wrapped it around his cock, sighing with relief.

“Good. Stroke yourself. However you like. Show me what feels good.”

Hannibal let out a little cry, moving his hand up and down along the foreskin. His grip was tight and enveloping, and he moaned as his hand passed over the exposed head. More fluid leaked out from the tip, and he used it to lubricate himself, panting hard now.

“Don’t hold on, I want to see you come.”

Hannibal’s belly tensed at that, and he groaned, jerking himself faster now. The room was filled with the slick sound of his hand. It was obscene and beautiful and new, like they’d broken through some priceless church window together, and were looking through to the other side.

“You’re already close, aren’t you?”

Hannibal nodded violently, hips stuttering a little.

“Open your eyes, Hannibal. Look at me.”

Hannibal did, and he was St. Sebastian, in agony and ecstasy, and so so close to the edge. Will had never seen anything so captivating, and he felt the inevitable pulse of his own half-hard cock in response.

“You’re beautiful, Hannibal. You're so beautiful. Come for me.”

Hannibal cried out, hips arching and heels pressed into the bed as he came hard. He kept his eyes on Will’s the whole time, and black galaxies passed between them while he pumped himself through his powerful orgasm until it finally slowed and stopped, a last dribble of cum falling onto his hand as he collapsed back onto the bed. Will looked over him. He was a mess, cum splashed all the way up to his chest hair and all over his belly, still heaving as he came down and let his breathing even out.

“Do you feel better?”

Hannibal let out a shaky sigh and nodded again, looking just past Will’s eyes. Will got up to get a warm cloth from the bathroom, and he came back to clean Hannibal’s torso gently, sitting next to him on the bed. He took Hannibal’s hand in his again and squeezed it lightly.

“I want you to relieve yourself when you feel the need, do you understand?”

Hannibal looked at him for a minute, not responding.

“I said, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Now go to sleep.”

Hannibal closed his eyes, clenching at Will’s hand in his. Will knew it would be a few minutes until his breathing evened out and he actually slept, but his obedience was a beautiful thing in itself. Will stayed on his back and stared at the ceiling for a while, Hannibal’s hand still warm in his own, until he too drifted off, calm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A slow start for these boys, but they're getting there.
> 
> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	3. Chapter 3

The next week passed in much the same haze as the previous ones, though every day Will continued to push Hannibal in small ways. 

On Tuesday, he left out Hannibal’s forest green sweater on the bed while Hannibal was in the shower; he was unsurprised to see Hannibal wearing it downstairs later. 

On Wednesday, while they brushed their teeth together in the morning, he asked Hannibal to make eggs benedict for breakfast; full and sated afterwards, he made sure to let Hannibal know he’d never had a more perfectly poached egg in his life. The tips of Hannibal’s ears pinked just slightly at the praise, and Will kept his satisfied smile to himself.

On Thursday, he went for a run around the perimeter of the property, remarking when he got home that the fence on the far side needed a new coat of paint; by Saturday morning, an online shipment of white paint, brushes, and rollers was sitting on the front porch.

During the day, the wall between them was still smoked glass, but at night, small fissures were appearing. Will now found himself waking with his hand clenched in Hannibal’s, their legs entwined most mornings. During Friday night’s thunderstorm, he slowly came to consciousness from thick, booming dreams to discover his face pressed into the crevice of Hannibal’s spine, the other man snuffling softly on his side. He tightened his arm around Hannibal’s belly and went back to sleep, waking in the morning to find Hannibal already gone to start his morning routine. They again ate breakfast silently, averting their eyes when they were caught stealing glances at the other. Their shyness was pink and wailing, fresh and new.

\--

Now, on Saturday afternoon, a chilly one, even for early Spring, Will was bundled in his work jacket and beanie, looking up at the roof of the cabin. To his dismay, the gutters were overflowing with old leaves and debris, their untended state revealed now that the snows had melted and the storm had blown through.

He sighed. The fences would have to wait. He knew the roof work would be torture on his shoulder, which was a mess of scar tissue and patchwork ligaments by now, but it had to be done. And Hannibal certainly wasn’t up to the task - his stomach wound still caused him to wince when he reached too far or strained his core too much. He’d tried to hide it from Will, but Will could see it written on his face when he lifted a heavy laundry basket or reached too high on a shelf. In time, he’d be back to normal, but things like this were still Will’s domain.

He went to the shed and gathered the ladder, his work gloves, and a few big trash bags, bringing them out to the side of the house. He went inside, finding Hannibal changing the linens.

“When you’re done, can you come outside? I need you to hold the ladder for me.”

Hannibal looked over his shoulder at him. He gave a minute nod of his head and went back to work creating crisp military corners in the dark blue sheets.

When Hannibal came out, he’d put on a comfortable zip-up jacket, hair hanging loosely in his eyes. It was the sort of thing that Will would have never imagined for Hannibal in their old life, but which suited him just fine in this one, gentle and warm.

Will climbed the ladder, and Hannibal stood at its base, holding on to it firmly. Hannibal took his task about as seriously as he took everything, which is to say he held the ladder as though he’d been training for it his whole life, effortlessly braced on his feet, shifting his weight to account for Will’s movements, focused and watchful.

Even in the chill, Will worked up a sweat, grabbing great handfuls of mulchy leaves and shoving them into his garbage bag. Every few minutes, he’d climb back down and move the ladder a few feet further, working his way around the house. Hannibal remained silent, pink-cheeked in the cold. Will felt his eyes on him the entire time. He looked down at Hannibal, small and soft from this distance. They made brief eye contact, and Will blushed at having been caught looking.

After an hour of this, Will finally reached the final handful of muck, tied off the fourth bag, and dropped it to the ground. Taking off his gloves, he began to descend the ladder again.

“Thank you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal gave him a long, inscrutable stare, then tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement before walking back inside, rubbing his hands together to warm them.

\--

When Will came in from putting the ladder and tools away and setting the bags of leaves near the compost heap to be added tomorrow, he found Hannibal sitting with his tablet in his usual armchair, two full mugs of hot cocoa on the side-table. Will took off his coat and hung it on the hall tree, then placed his boots underneath it. He crossed the room and sat in his chair, groaning at the relief of being off his feet after the afternoon’s hard work. 

Hannibal didn’t look up when he came in, just continued reading. He’d built a fire and was wearing his thick woolen socks and a grey cashmere sweater. Will was aware that he was being slowly allowed these patches of softness - Hannibal’s need, his hunger, his chilled bones - and he silently held them in the atrial warmth of his heart.

After closing his eyes and soaking in the warmth of the fire for a minute, Will reached for his cocoa, sipping it lightly and humming in gratification. He became aware of Hannibal’s eyes on him as soon as he picked up the mug. He looked back slowly to see a shuddering beast staring back, nostrils flared, a hint of pink tongue visible through the slight part in his lips. Will pulled the mug away and licked the sweetness from his lips, perhaps a little more gratuitously than necessary, watching as Hannibal’s eyes shifted to them.

“Drink your cocoa, Hannibal.”

Hannibal didn’t react for a long moment, still focused on Will’s mouth. Tablet forgotten, he reached out to the table to take his own mug, not taking his eyes off Will for a second. When his lips wrapped around the rim, plush and wet, Will suddenly _wanted_ him, wanted this shy, starving animal who’d moved into Hannibal’s skin. He felt a shiver go through his belly and pool at his groin, and wondered if those lips always been that way, through all those dinners in Baltimore, all those glasses of wine in the office - had he really never noticed?

“You were very helpful this week, Hannibal.”

He didn’t miss the small catch of air that escaped Hannibal’s throat, the way his eyes went just a bit blacker at the praise. He set his mug down and reached over to take Hannibal’s hand in his. Hannibal looked at it for a minute, studying, unsteady, before grasping back, holding Will in a tight grip.

Will’s eyes traveled down and noticed the growing bulge in his pants. _Oh._ Hannibal didn’t say anything, but kept watching Will’s mouth, his own lip now worrying between his teeth.

“Have you masturbated this week?”

Hannibal, slow to react, shook his head no and averted his eyes to a speck of dirt on the floor.

“Have you wanted to?”

Silence.

“What did I tell you, Hannibal?”

Hannibal’s eyes, narrow and dark, focused on his hand in Will’s, gripped tightly enough that Will could feel his pulse bounding through his veins.

“I said, ‘What did I tell you?’”

Hannibal’s gaze met Will’s at that, uprooted at the command in his voice. His face took on that small and desperate look Will had seen on him in bed, like a rabbit who has come too near a foxhole.

“You told me I should relieve myself when I feel the need.”

“And have you done that?”

“No.”

“How many times have you denied yourself this week?”

“Many.”

“How many?”

Hannibal’s eyes unshrouded at that, the rabbit retreating back into him. He was again the beast who paced and slouched, bloody and whole and devastating.

“If I kept count, Will, it would be the number of times you entered the room. The number of times I smelled you in the sheets. The number of times I saw your boots, strewn careless in the hallway. Would you have me catalogue these things?”

Will felt his brow furrow, and he looked at him softly, seeing how this great bull was locked into his own mind’s labyrinth. Will envisioned the ball of twine in his hand, wrapped tightly, its end on the ground at Hannibal’s feet.

“Would you like to do something about it now?”

Hannibal looked now at Will with that same raw and naked curiosity in his eyes, head tilted slightly.

“What I would like is to understand what you’re playing at, Will.”

Will flinched, entirely unprepared for the bluntness of his response.

“I’m not playing at anything, Hannibal.”

“You do not desire me sexually, yet you continue to involve yourself with my sexual fulfillment. You continue to control my desire for your pleasure. Would you not consider that a game?” 

As he talked, Will’s head was clouded with the way Hannibal’s mouth moved around the words, the slight susurration that softened his speech, his tongue hitting the back of his teeth.

“When did I ever say I don’t desire you sexually?” Will heard the words as though they’d come out of someone else’s mouth, his own currently filled with molasses, but he knew they were true nonetheless. They'd passed through the veil, and their squalling intimacy, their birth into this new and inevitable life, was now.

Will squeezed Hannibal’s hand back, their mutual grip now almost bruising with its force.

“You are my partner and my equal, Hannibal. We’ve seen each other and committed to each other in this life. Your needs are my needs.”

Hannibal looked broken at Will’s words, like he might cry, like he’d seen something holy and terrible. He trembled with the weight of their new truth, his left hand’s grip on Will’s hand softening while the right clenched at thin air.

Will continued, gentle, “What do you want, Hannibal?”

“All of you that you will let me have.”

Will met Hannibal’s eyes steadily, grounding him, feeling a small smile touch the corners of his eyes. “I think you deserve a reward for all your help this week. Where would you like to start?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	4. Chapter 4

_“What do you want, Hannibal?”_

_“All of you that you will let me have.”_

_Will met Hannibal’s eyes steadily, grounding him, feeling a small smile touch the corners of his eyes. “I think you deserve a reward for all your help this week. Where would you like to start?”_

\--

Hannibal looked over Will’s body, nostrils flared, ravenous, suddenly glutted with the possibility before him.

“I would breathe you in, Will, every part. I would hold you in my lungs until the end of days.”

Will took the left hand that was still clenched in his own and pulled it over so that it cupped his own hardness, gasping at the contact. Hannibal’s eyes glazed over, and he let out an indelicate groan at feeling the proof of Will’s desire. He pressed against Will, then pulled back to run his fingers down his length, filling in the voids in his mind’s eye with this new knowledge. His hand was big and warm, and Will felt safe and whole in its grip.

“Would you like to taste?”

Hannibal looked at his face again, eyes completely gone by now, mouth open, burning. He pressed his right hand to his own groin blatantly, moaning a little with this small relief he was finally allowing himself.

“On your knees.”

Hannibal obeyed, prostrating himself between Will’s legs like an apostle, waiting fervently for his next order.

Will still wasn’t entirely sure what this game was, but he did know that he’d given a rule that Hannibal had blatantly broken. This was a first in his little experiment.

“Good. Now, we still haven't addressed the issue of your disobedience this week. You held yourself back from orgasm against my direct orders. What are we going to do about that?”

Silence. Hannibal’s eyes focused on a spot just behind Will’s ear.

“Look at me when I’m speaking to you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal snapped his eyes to Will’s, his neck flushing.

“Better. Here’s what will happen: you may have me in your mouth, but you may not touch. You may do whatever you want with your lips and tongue, but you may not take me in hand, and you may not offer yourself relief. Hands behind your back. I trust you can keep them there.”

Hannibal looked back at him with needy eyes, contrite. “Yes.” He moved his trembling hands behind his back, breathing deeply as he assumed the appropriate position.

“Good. Within those boundaries, you may do as you like. I want you to feel free to take your time and enjoy yourself, do you understand?”

“Yes.”

Will looked at him softly and gave him a small nod of acknowledgement. He then moved his hands to his pants and began working the buttons loose. Hannibal watched him intently, a wolf in the underbrush. Will finally pushed his fly open and his boxers down around his hard cock, displaying himself for Hannibal’s appraisal. Hannibal made a small, broken noise when Will gripped himself and stroked once, twice.

“Come here.”

Hannibal moved just that little bit closer, Will’s knees now boxing in his sides. His hair was loose and hanging over his forehead, and Will reached out a hand to brush it aside, lingering on his cheek, thumb ghosting over his bottom lip. “Go ahead, whenever you’re ready.”

Hannibal closed his eyes and pressed into Will’s hand in gratitude, unable to help himself from leaving a small kiss on Will’s palm. Will felt a shiver go through him at the chaste touch.

When Will pulled his hand back, Hannibal shuddered and sighed. Opening his eyes, he focused in on Will’s cock, now standing tall and flushed. He moved in and nosed along its curve, ending up right at the root, moaning loudly once his nose was buried firmly in the pubic hair at the base. Pressing his eyes closed again now, he breathed him in deeply in great, drowning breaths. Will wondered how long he'd been waiting for this exact experience, building it up over the years on the cave wall of his mind. 

After he’d gotten his fill, temporarily sated on Will’s scent, Hannibal moved back up the length of his cock, pressing chaste kisses to the shaft as he went. When he reached the head, he laved it with his tongue and suckled it lightly into his mouth to clear it of precum, moaning helplessly at the taste, his hips already jerking futily into thin air.

Once Hannibal had the taste of Will in his mouth, a switch flipped in him, and he was done teasing. He sucked Will down inch by inch, instantly creating a hard and fast pressure that had Will keening in seconds, his thoughts going white.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he choked out. Hannibal’s raw suction, unforgiving, was so good, so thorough. With how long it had been since he'd come, he knew it would be over in less than a minute if Hannibal kept this up. Already he felt himself coiling tighter, nearing the edge, and still Hannibal kept going as though Will were water in the desert, as though this was all the nourishment he'd ever need again.

“Fuck, Hannibal, _slow down_ ,” he forced himself to command, almost regretting the order when Hannibal took him into his throat, swallowing tight around him. So close, he was so close, but not ready for it to be over so soon. Hannibal kept at it as though he hadn’t heard him, looking like he’d be content to continue at this same pace for hours, almost beatific in his bliss.

“Hannibal. I said ‘slow down.’” He yanked harshly on Hannibal’s hair, succeeding in pulling him off his dick entirely.

Hannibal already looked a mess, hair again hanging in his glazed eyes, belly heaving, sweat standing out on his brow and staining his sweater. His lips were full and wet, and the outline of his cock was very visible through his dark wool slacks.

“You may continue, but only if you promise to pace yourself. Do you understand?”

Hannibal nodded, a small whine escaping his throat.

“Good. Go ahead, take your time.” He carded the fingers still in Hannibal’s hair softly over his scalp in apology for his earlier roughness.

Hannibal leaned into the touch, seawall breached and spilling over. Will withdrew his hand again, and Hannibal took a couple of deep breaths, throwing down sandbags to stem the flood. After a minute, his breathing evened a little, and he moved forward into Will’s lap again. 

He took Will’s tip in his mouth, gentle. He slowly moved to take more in, tongue pressed firmly to the base as he sucked lightly and then withdrew, repeating this cycle over and over. He paid attention to the tip on every round, pressing light kisses to it, tonguing the slit and the sweet spot under the head, soft and worshipful.

Will was no longer urgently close to coming, but he was almost more overwhelmed by this supplication, this gift of milk and honey. This, now, was another veil lifted, Hannibal’s beating heart laid out for him.

Hannibal went on like this for long minutes, looking up to Will’s eyes, a shining transparency passing between them. Will felt the uncontrolled motion of Hannibal’s hips, pressed as they were between his legs. Pleasure flowed over him in waves, birthed on seafoam, and he heard himself moaning as if underwater.

“You’re so good, Hannibal, so good for me.” Hannibal flushed a little darker and began moving a little faster over Will’s cock at the praise. Will gradually felt the climb towards orgasm building again in his abdomen, and he buried his hand in Hannibal’s hair to stabilize both of them, just holding on.

After a little while, he slowly became aware that his hips were beginning to rock up into Hannibal’s mouth, and when he tried to restrain himself, he felt rather than heard Hannibal’s small growl, wolven eyes looking back up with defiance. Hannibal pulled off him completely and gave him a petulant look, then sucked him back down aggressively, humming in pleasure when Will’s hips again began bucking. Will groaned at his hungry enthusiasm, watching the small smile form in Hannibal’s eyes as he let himself over to his body’s base instincts.

“Hannibal, fuck, I’m close.” He continued to fuck up into Hannibal’s mouth, rougher now, and Hannibal moaned around him. He closed his eyes, feeling the vibrations, and when he opened them, the look on Hannibal’s face, like he’d found home, like he’d seen God, had him falling over the edge with a shout, hips snapping up with the force of his orgasm. Hannibal swallowed every pulse, watching Will’s face with religious fervor. Will fell through doors and doors and doors in the black of space, other lives and worlds passing him by until he came back to consciousness in this one. 

When Will finally returned to himself, boneless and shuddering, Hannibal released him from his mouth. He gently licked him clean and left a final wet kiss on the tip before looking back up at Will, shy and coltish.

“You’re… you were… _fuck_ , come here,” Will stuttered out, overwhelmed with his need to be close. Hannibal obeyed, and Will took his face in his hands, kissing him deeply, tongue roving in his mouth. He pulled back to pant, “You can use your hands again,” and Hannibal did, gratefully, roaming all over Will’s cheeks and hair and neck, pulling him as close as he possibly could. They drowned and gasped together, tasting bread and wine and holy water.

Mouth full of his own taste and Hannibal’s, Will moved his hand down the other man’s front, intending to help him with his own completion. He groaned lowly when he found only a spreading wet spot. “Jesus, Hannibal.” Hannibal just moaned again, unashamed, and kept kissing Will. When Will finally pulled back to catch his breath, pressing their foreheads together and existing on Hannibal’s air, he moved his hand to stroke Hannibal’s hair gently, calming.

“You’re so good for me, Hannibal. So good.”

Hannibal whimpered a little at that, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Go and get the water heated for a bath. I’ll join you in a minute.”

Hannibal nodded, rocking back on his heels when Will broke away. When Will stood, Hannibal followed suit. Will looked towards the staircase with a little nod, and Hannibal took to his task, leaving him alone to think.

Today had been so much more than Will had intended or expected from their relationship, and they’d only begun their steep climb, hooves finding holds in the rocks as they went. Hannibal’s calm need for Will’s permission had been one thing, but his sexual response to being controlled was something else altogether. Will’s own newly apparent desire for Hannibal was yet more territory to be mapped - he had a loose vision of its shoreline, its bays and inlets, but had yet to know what lay within, dark jungle and fertile plains.

Now that he’d tasted the fruit, their future swam in front of him in thick colors and shapes and sounds, newborn and hale. He was starving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	5. Chapter 5

_I'm still wanting my face on your cheek, and when we break, we'll wait for our miracle; God is a place where some holy spectacle lies._

\--

Will let Hannibal exist upstairs for a few minutes, standing and watching the pink sunset through the window to clear his own head.

He wondered what this new experience would make of Hannibal: would he be doe-like and timid, waiting and watching? Would he be emboldened, clapped out from his hiding places? Or would he be shearing ice, a white and tumbling melt?

Will looked at his own position: he was the owner of this new love, he’d struck the flint and coddled it with tissue. He would tend it, and they would be warm and fed, or he would let it go, and the cold would creep into their limbs. He refused to look at the last option, the one where flames licked up the dry pine needles all around, consuming all in reach.

Warm, then, and this would be their new home.

He stared into the trees at the far edge of their property, too far to make out individual leaves, but there, just to center left, a shine of eye and a buck’s horn, and it was gone again.

\--

Will turned away and went upstairs, shucking his outer shirt as he went and throwing it on the bed. He entered the bathroom and found Hannibal fully clothed and barefoot, standing next to the tub with arms held politely behind his back. The tub was full of water, and vapor rose from the surface in the chilly room. Will inclined his head, a small nod of thanks, and saw Hannibal’s nostrils flare.

“Take off your sweater and pants.”

Hannibal did, folding them neatly on the counter, leaving only his heather-grey undershirt and black boxer-briefs. He looked far too small, and Will suddenly needed to hold him. He walked the few steps between them and put his arms around Hannibal. He nestled his head into the other man’s neck, chin just hitting his tall shoulder, and he rocked there for a long minute, letting out a long exhale. Eventually Hannibal untucked his own arms from under Will’s, wrapping them broadly around Will’s shoulders, burying his face in Will’s hair. Will felt Hannibal’s chest heave, just once, and then broad hands pressed into his back, holding him tight. They lived for years in that moment.

Will pulled away with a small kiss to Hannibal’s cheek, just in front of his ear. He reached for the hem of Hannibal’s undershirt and rucked it up, passing gentle fingers along his exposed belly, rewarding his trust with softness. 

“Arms up.” Hannibal obeyed, and Will pulled the shirt the rest of the way off for him. Hannibal looked just as he always did, solid and scarred and human. Will put his hands on Hannibal’s hips, thumbs gently kneading along the iliac furrow in front, before shifting downwards to push his sticky and ruined briefs off and to the floor. 

“Step out.” Hannibal did, nude now and unashamed as always. He was beautiful, and Will was crushed with the knowledge that he always had been, through all of it. He was Will’s.

“Into the tub.” Hannibal obeyed, settling himself against the back. A deep sigh escaped him when the heat of it hit his chest, his skin pinking in the warm water. Will took off his own pants then, along with his undershirt and boxers, as Hannibal watched with leonine eyes, patient.

“Move up,” and Hannibal did, Will climbing in to take the space behind him. The small tub could hardly hold them both, water sloshing out to the side, their legs a claustrophobic tangle. They were tight together and they melted to fill the space. 

Will felt Hannibal’s opioid pulse, slow and thick, through all the points where they joined. He pressed an open kiss to the side of Hannibal’s throat, tonguing right over the booming carotid. Kissing up his neck and along his jawline, he stopped by his ear to speak softly, “You did beautifully for me today,” earning a small exhale in return. Hannibal turned his head then to catch Will’s mouth in a hard kiss, hand coming up to press against his face, thumb stroking his cheek gently. They kissed like that for a long minute, and when Hannibal’s tongue entered his mouth, Will tasted figs and pomegranates.

Pulling away now, forehead to forehead, Will asked, “Move up a bit, dip your head back for me.” Hannibal did his best in the limited space, letting out a small chuckle when his elbow bumped against Will’s belly and their knees knocked against the side of the tub, eventually settling with his legs bent and his head partially submerged in Will’s lap.

“Huh, I probably should have thought this out before I got in with you.” Will looked down at Hannibal’s upside-down face and laughed, pleased to see a smile in return, a genuine spark of joy in his eyes.

Smiling back, Will passed his fingers along Hannibal’s scalp, caressing his hair through the water before he withdrew his hand again in search of shampoo. He tilted his head up, working it through his silver hair, massaging into his scalp until he had a good lather. Hannibal’s eyes closed slowly, his mind focused entirely on the sensation.

Tipping Hannibal’s head back into the water again, Will rinsed the shampoo out, then lingered a little longer, working his scalp in little circles. Hannibal was butter in his hands, breathing deeply and slowly. Everything was wonderfully warm, and Will felt encased in a liminal womb, a holding place.

“Can you sit up for me again?”

Hannibal opened his eyes at that, looking up at Will with a soft, pliant gaze before he maneuvered himself back up into Will’s lap. Will wet and lathered a washcloth, then began rubbing it across Hannibal’s shoulders. He took his time massaging it in, getting every bit of his skin and kneading the soft texture of the cloth against it. Will was gentle around the massive white scar over Hannibal’s spine, and again around the pink tissue of his newer bullet wound, kissing the back of his neck lightly as he passed over them. Hannibal rumbled long and low from deep in his chest, a slide of breaking boulders.

“I’ve got you, you’re here with me. Lean back onto me.”

Hannibal did, and Will reached his arms around to wash Hannibal’s front, soaping up his chest hair and arms, and further down, his stomach, again giving delicate attention to the healing skin over his wound. He wrapped a hand around his soft cock under the water, pushing back the foreskin to clean the head, giving him the same treatment here he’d given the rest of his torso. Hannibal leaned his head back and to the side and pressed a kiss to Will’s throat, and Will hummed in return.

Afterwards, they climbed from the tub together, clumsy and dripping. Once out, they met in timid, accidental eye contact, and with some loud, freeing shatter, the glass wall between them cracked. Will let out a short laugh that had Hannibal smiling and tilting his head, and then suddenly they were kissing again. 

As though they’d never been two people, their bodies pressed slick and close together at every possible point, and they groped and pulled and owned. Will wasn’t sure how they’d gotten here, or whether they’d always been here. He grasped handfuls of Hannibal’s hips and ass and back and arms, kneading and exploring scar tissue and warm skin, finally free to enjoy this, to want it. Hannibal’s hands were a spreading fire, memorizing every piece of Will he could reach. Their teeth knocked together like rams, their tongues one entity between them.

Will felt like he finally understood bliss and how to feel it.

They kissed until they were lazy and slow, burned to white ash, all the oxygen in the room spent. Will pulled back and rested his cheek against Hannibal’s. He realized that their hands were now mirrored, each pressing into the other’s shoulder blades, holding their other self tight. They stilled and breathed in tandem.

Eventually, Hannibal broke off with a final kiss to Will’s forehead, leaving to find towels for them to dry off with. They dried and brushed their teeth, and then they put their toothbrushes back in the cup and their towels back up on the hook. They climbed into bed still nude, laying on their normal sides of the bed and pulling the fresh blue sheets and thick cotton quilt up to their chins in the chilly room. Will reached for Hannibal’s hand under the blanket, stroking the back with his thumb. 

“Hannibal?”

“Hmm?”

“We’ll work on the garden tomorrow.”

“Alright.”

“Goodnight, Hannibal.”

“Goodnight, Will.”

They fell asleep cocooned, hands entwined, pulses slowing to one beat, and both of them slept through the night.

\--

Will woke to the soft sounds of bare feet and running water in the adjacent bathroom. He dozed lightly, warm and cozy in their nest of a bed, waking again when he heard Hannibal opening the third dresser drawer. He watched him rummage for a minute, enjoying as always the sight of a Hannibal who didn’t know he was being watched. This Hannibal was soft and methodical, going through the drawer with purpose and re-stacking neatly the items he didn’t choose. He pulled out a pair of pajama pants for himself from the right side, stepping into them with a smooth, comfortable grace, and then chose another pair from the Will’s side of the drawer, leaving them on the ottoman for Will to find and wear when he woke. It was a tiny and unnecessary gesture, and Will felt himself falling deeper into this den they’d built.

“Will, would you prefer your eggs scrambled or over-easy?” Hannibal called over his shoulder.

So much for assuming Will was asleep.

“Hmm, either one is fine, whichever you want,” Will yawned, rolling onto his side and pressing his face into the pillow to steal an extra few minutes of sleep. He heard Hannibal’s padding steps out of the room and down the stairs, and woke again a little while later to the drifting smells of coffee and sausage. He stretched then and pulled himself out of bed, putting on the pants Hannibal had set out for him.

In the kitchen, there was already a cup of coffee at his seat at the breakfast table, just a hint of cream tanning the surface. Hannibal’s back was turned while he worked at the sink, and Will watched as he sipped his coffee. He saw the familiar clay landscape of him, the thumbprint dimples just above the waistband of his pants, the raw and unplanned gashes of his scars, the plush little hills of his hips, and he remembered the feel of all of these in his hands.

Hannibal turned around to plate their breakfast, then carried over two teeming servings of over-easy eggs, spiced sausage, and potatoes fried with peppers and onions. They made brief eye contact above their plates, wordless. Will nodded a little in permission, and they both began to eat. 

The food was comforting and warm and hearty, and Will tasted home. The last months and years of silence didn’t matter anymore – here they were and this is where they’d live, in these moments of fullness.

After they both finished, they sat nursing their coffees, leaning back in their chairs and listening to the bird that had taken up in the eaves of their patio.

“Hannibal?”

“Hmm?”

“I think it’s probably time to talk about last night.” He looked over at him calmly, neither gazing nor demanding, just open.

“Yes, probably. Would you like to start?” Hannibal looked back with clear eyes, at ease in this sort of conversation.

“Did you enjoy what happened, Hannibal?”

Hannibal studied him for a minute, unsurprised to have his request turned back on him. “Immensely, Will. Was my involuntary release not proof enough of that?”

Will almost choked on his coffee. “Your… well, yes, I suppose your reaction _did_ make that point pretty well.”

“To be that near you, Will, to be allowed access and to be asked to provide you pleasure. All of this was more than I’d ever hoped.” Hannibal’s eyes were piercing and sincere.

“There it is, ‘...to be asked.’” Will rubbed at the rough stubble on his chin as he spoke, looking back at Hannibal with a lightly furrowed brow, curious. “Is this the sort of thing you see yourself wanting more of in the future?”

“Whatever you wish of me, Will, you can have. I would know what your wants and desires are. I would fill them as I am able.”

“Okay.” Will sat back and sipped his coffee. He looked out the window. On the blank, snowless lawn, in the northeast corner, sat the cleared garden plot, ready for tilling. He thought about what he would plant and where, and how good the black, rich soil would feel on his hands.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aftercare is important, folks. Always make sure to hug your cannibal after you play.
> 
>  
> 
> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	6. Chapter 6

After breakfast, Will left Hannibal to clean up in the kitchen while he went to change into his work clothes and get the gardening supplies out of the shed. He slipped into a comfortable pair of olivedrab denim pants and a brown henley, foregoing the flannel and beanie in anticipation of today’s sunnier weather. He made his way outside, squinting in the light.

When Will looked back at the house, he saw Hannibal, soft-eyed and bare-shouldered, watching him through the kitchen window above the sink. Hannibal blinked, then averted his gaze, disappearing from sight a moment later. The grey of his hair remained a flare in Will’s vision, and he thought about how it had felt under his fingers when he’d been in Hannibal’s mouth, silky and thick.

Will turned and went out to the shed, grabbing a couple of shovels and bringing them to the garden. He then set to adding the bagged leaves from the cleared gutters to the compost heap, watching them melt in with apple cores and potato skins and coffee grounds. 

He was still at this when Hannibal came outside, wearing just a grey undershirt and tan cotton pants. He felt Hannibal’s eyes on him as he emptied the last bag, and was suddenly self-conscious about the sweat staining his back in the midday sun.

“What are you thinking about, Hannibal?” Will called over his shoulder.

A moment, and then, “I’m glad, Will, to be closing the door on winter and walking into spring.” His voice was earnest, and rusted from disuse.

Will looked back at him and saw Hannibal squatting back on his heels, running his hand through the black earth. He was smothered with the soft affection that washed over him at the sight, such a small and innocent thing. So real, in a way their lives had never allowed them to be: dirt and sweat and green where there were once rivers of blood and wine and bile. Their sand foundation replaced with wood, a sturdy and living home.

Will came over to the garden patch and squatted next to Hannibal. He watched a small earthworm crawl through the soil in Hannibal’s hand, crossing the lines of his palm before sliding over the side and back into the earth. He traced its path with his finger, through the dirt and over Hannibal’s palm and back down again. Hannibal let him. He entwined their fingers just briefly.

“We’ll need to clear the grass before we can till. This will be the hardest part, so we’ll see how far we get today.”

Letting go of Hannibal’s hand with a small squeeze, he stood again and took up the shovels, handing one to the other man, who rocked up off his heels to stand with him.

Will knew Hannibal to be at least a competent gardener, given the small patch he’d maintained in Baltimore, but Hannibal had thus far remained silent and watchful through all their yard work. He seemed curious to discover Will’s methods and abilities, content to defer to him. Whether he’d done this before or not didn’t matter.

“I already cleared out the weeds and the dead leaves last week, so we’ve got a head start. We’ll need to dig the grass up by the roots, about this deep –” here, Will pushed his shovel about halfway into the soft earth “– we just want to take the layer of plant growth out, but the soil is good, let’s try and keep as much of it as we can.”

Hannibal watched, taking in his movements and form, watching how he buried the shovel, then twisted it back and forth on the way up, dislodging the roots from their beds. Soon, Will had excavated a good chunk of plant, and he bent to pick it up and shake the soil free. He tossed it to the side, and started again on the next patch. 

Hannibal took up his shovel and twisted it in the dirt, experimentally digging up his own clump of grass. Will put his hand on Hannibal’s shoulder to encourage him to pull the blade back, just so. “There, try like that. It’ll take some of the pressure off your lower back.” 

Hannibal tried again, Will’s hand still on his shoulder. “Better?” Hannibal looked back at him, opaque, and nodded. “Much.” He broke the contact and walked to the other side of the garden, making his own path through the grass and copying Will’s technique.

For a while, there was nothing but the the huffing of their heavy breaths and the chnk-chnk-chnk sound of the shovel breaking up dirt. At one point, Will looked over at Hannibal to watch him dig. He was flushed and sweating, but he had a calm look about him, as if he were chopping onions or playing a favorite song, a Bach, perhaps, or a Mahler. Will’s gaze passed over his working bicep, his strong, veined hand. He remembered how that hand had felt in bed, in the living room, on the cliff, grasping and needy. He kept digging.

After they worked together for a long hour, they’d made it about halfway through the square of land. Will put down his shovel for a second and pulled the bottom of his shirt up to wipe the sweat from his face. When he righted himself and opened his eyes, he wasn’t surprised to see Hannibal watching, shovel hanging at his side. His eyes were lidded and calm, looking at Will for the sake of it, simply because he could. Will wondered if he'd built a garden in his head for this image, a mental Eden he could visit. He wondered if Hannibal even felt the need to catalogue him anymore. Will cleared his throat. Hannibal averted his gaze, looked briefly to the ground, unseeing, and got back to work.

They finally met in the middle of the garden after about another hour. There were two evenly sized hills of uprooted grass now, one on Will’s side, and one on Hannibal’s. The land was brown where it had been green, old growth plowed to make way for new. Will looked down at his feet and saw a flash of white in the dirt. He leaned down to unearth it, finding a long and pointed canine. A wolf, or maybe a bear or a catamount. Decades old, or a century, or a year.

“I think that’s a good day’s progress. Tomorrow we can till and begin laying rows.”

“Alright.” Hannibal turned to look at the patch of dirt, leaning on his shovel, unreadable.

“How about a cold drink, Hannibal?” Will slipped the tooth into his pocket, a token.

Hannibal nodded. “I’ll make us some iced tea.”

Hannibal went into the house. Will put the tools away and spread the piles of grass into the wild part of their property to the west. Next to him, a squirrel fussed at a jay just inside the treeline, then bolted further into the forest with a racket of leaves.

When Will came inside, Hannibal handed him a cold glass. They stood leaning against the counter and silently drank their tea next to each other. Will again entwined their fingers together lazily. It was comfortable and new and familiar. Hannibal’s eyes lingered on their hands, on Will’s mouth, on his throat. It didn’t bother Will the way he thought it might. He licked his lips. Hannibal’s eyes followed.

“Thank you, Hannibal.” Hannibal broke out of his trance, nodding in acknowledgement and dropping his loose hold on Will’s hand to put their empty glasses in the sink.

“I’m going to go and take a shower,” Will said, turning to leave the kitchen. He didn’t miss the way Hannibal’s nostrils flared as he passed him.

\--

In the shower, Will found himself thinking about Hannibal’s hands again. He remembered the strong feel of them kneading into his ass last night, grasping at his shoulder blades, cradling the side of his face. He remembered the softness of them in the kitchen just now, timid and only barely holding on. He gripped himself, now half-hard, and stroked, suddenly full of his new want to feel Hannibal’s hands here too. How big they’d be, how warm and enveloping. He remembered Hannibal cupping him yesterday, those blunt fingers caging him in, and he stroked harder, faster. He thought about their potential, about their mouths and hands and bodies together. Biting his lip, he shuddered and came too quickly against the shower wall, gasping through it.

After he caught his breath, he cleaned himself up and dried off, putting on a loose pair of drawstring pants and a t-shirt. He found the tooth where he’d left it on the dresser, and put it in his pocket again. He smelled dinner cooking, warm and savory, and was suddenly hungry.

Downstairs, he found Hannibal in the kitchen, cleaning up his cutting board. “Your turn in the shower,” Will said from behind him, and Hannibal’s ears pricked at the sound and smell of him.

Hannibal turned around, raking over Will’s body with more intent than usual, less afraid to show his hunger. “If you would, dinner can come out of the oven when the timer goes off.” 

“Of course.”

Hannibal left, and Will took the kitchen timer with him to sit outside on the patio. He took the tooth out of his pocket and turned it over and over in his hand, running it up and down his fingers, pressing it in until his skin turned white, then waiting for the color to return before doing it again. Dusk fell and the woods turned eerie, liminal. 

He stared into the trees for a long while, blurring in and out and mistaking the shadows for plants and animals and rocks. His blood was slow and warm after the work in the yard and his orgasm, and when he saw the deer again, he wasn’t quite sure he and it were in the same place. He didn't know whether there was one of it, or one of him, or many of both, or whether it was all the same. He startled when the timer sounded.

He slipped the tooth back into his pocket then, and headed back inside. Unusual for Hannibal to leave dinner to Will’s devices for so long, but then, there wasn’t really much about their lives that _was_ usual these days.

Will pulled the pot from the oven, opening it to find a roasted chicken, surrounded by carrots and potatoes. It smelled thickly of rosemary and crackled skin and fat. He pulled the chicken out, carving it into quarters, and he made a plate for each of them: a thigh section for Hannibal, and a breast for himself.

Hannibal came downstairs just as Will put the plates on the table. His hair was damp and stuck to his forehead, and his eyes were clear and light brown. He smelled like soap and like his heartbeat.

Hannibal sat at his place setting, quiet. Will sat across from him, and they looked at each other, breathing evenly and in time. Will felt his eyes shift down until they rested on Hannibal’s lips. At the subtle increase in Hannibal’s breathing, he looked away, down to his knife and fork. He picked them up and began to eat. Hannibal followed suit, eyes still on Will as he carved the tender thigh meat from its bone.

They ate through their meal, stealing occasional glances. Will felt the weight of the tooth in his pocket, a tiny and heavy thing.

When Hannibal put down his knife and fork, Will looked up at him again, into his shaded eyes. “Thank you for dinner. It was very good.” Hannibal blinked and ran his bottom lip between his teeth before standing, taking both their plates to the sink with him.

Will followed, taking up his spot next to Hannibal to dry while the other man washed. Hannibal filled the sink with soapy water and plunged his hands in, starting on the glassware.

“You were in the shower a long time earlier, Hannibal.”

Hannibal stilled for a moment, then resumed washing. Will wouldn’t have noticed the pause if he hadn’t known Hannibal so well for so long. “Was I?”

“Longer than usual.”

A small exhale. “I wasn’t aware you kept track of such things.”

Will chuckled a little. “That’s a lie and we both know it.”

Hannibal remained silent, handing a glass to Will to dry and starting on the next.

“Did you enjoy yourself?” Will kept on.

Hannibal did stop at that, putting down his sponge. “Yes.” He turned to face Will, looking over at him with working eyes, a slight tilt in his head. “Did you?”

Will held steady eye contact, hands still drying the first glass, polishing it around the rim now. “I found my shower very enjoyable. Glad to hear that you did as well.”

He turned back to his glass then, focusing on it with a small smile. After a long moment, Hannibal turned and went back to his washing, and they dropped the topic. He washed another glass, Will dried another glass; he washed a plate, Will dried a plate; he washed the pot and the coffee mugs and the iced tea pitcher, Will dried the pot and the coffee mugs and the iced tea pitcher. When they’d finished, Will walked behind Hannibal to go into the living room, passing his hand along Hannibal’s lower back as he went and feeling him ripple and tense.

He went to the bookshelf and ran his finger along the cracked leather spines of the old Encyclopedia Britannica, stopping at Volume Eighteen, Taylor - Utah. He pulled it out and went to sit in his usual seat, flipping through entries on “Tbilisi,” “Team Sports,” “Technology,” until he reached “Teeth.”

He felt Hannibal come and take his own chair on the other end of the side-table, and soon heard the soft scratching of graphite on paper. He took the tooth out of his pocket and compared it to the illustrations of canines in the book. Lupine, feline, vulpine, ursine. A bear, then. On their property and outside their warm home at some unplumbed time. He ran the tooth down his finger again, pressing it in lightly at the pad before closing the book and placing the tooth on the side-table. 

He looked over at Hannibal’s drawing of the backyard, the cleared dirt patch in the back a new addition to the well-worn image. He watched him draw for a while, listening to the wind in the trees outside, eyes travelling lazily between Hannibal’s focused face and his large and delicate hands. After a little while, after Hannibal had gone through with a finger and smudged shadows into the leaves and under the rocks and bits of wood, he initialed the bottom right corner and closed his sketchbook, placing it on the table next to the tooth.

“We’ll go out again tomorrow and plant the seeds.” Will stood, walking over to the shelf to put the book in its place, between Volumes Seventeen and Nineteen. Hannibal nodded, just once, standing to follow Will. They brushed their teeth together and changed into pajama bottoms before getting in bed.

“Turn over.” Hannibal did, and Will spooned around him from behind, hugging Hannibal’s stomach and feeling a strong arm cover his own. He pressed a kiss to Hannibal’s spine, just where the cervical vertebrae ended.

“Hannibal?”

“Hmm?” He felt Hannibal’s rib cage expand and contract under his arm as he took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

“I would have helped earlier, if you’d asked me to. In the shower.”

Hannibal didn’t say anything.

Their breathing slowed and evened, and they slept.

Will dreamed about a great buck, standing on their land, no cabin or shed or garden in sight, either long before or long after their residence here. He called to it and it looked back at him calmly, without fear. He smelled Hannibal everywhere.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	7. Chapter 7

Will woke with his face buried in Hannibal’s neck. Neither of them had shifted at all in the night. 

Hannibal’s skin was warm, and Will smelled his sloe-gin pulse beating softly just under it. The broad, hard expanse of Hannibal’s back was pressed against his own chest; Hannibal’s arm, heavy and unmoving, still trapped Will’s around the firm nave of his rib cage. Will’s thighs and knees and calves fit concentrically behind Hannibal’s. 

He felt warm all the way down to his bones. For a minute, he couldn’t remember all the things that had led up to this, and they were just two people at home in each other. They’d never dragged the other from the ocean, they’d never visited the other behind bars and glass, they’d never sat across from the other and fit keys into the lock of his mind. They’d been born in this cocoon, they were brand new and whole and one.

Hannibal let out a soft sigh and hugged Will’s arm tighter, eyes moving rapidly under their lids, still deeply asleep. Will breathed slowly and steadily, each lungful shared between them. He felt content and protective, as responsible for the body beneath his as he was for his own.

He thought on their new intimacy, the page they’d turned that exposed the colophon of their mutual desire.

This much he’d learned over the last week: Hannibal wanted him; moreover, he gained pleasure, or at least contentment, from Will’s dominance. For his part, Will had enjoyed their moments of physical closeness, but had also enjoyed seeing Hannibal at ease under his direction, seeing how far he could be led.

He thought about Hannibal pouring them coffee, Hannibal obedient in the garden, Hannibal taking him into his throat.

This new Hannibal was docile and curious, but also incomplete and shuttered. Will knew that there was still something bestial in Hannibal, knew that he’d shown Will only glimpses of his want. 

Will daily found himself hungry for more. He wanted the animal part of him, the part that screamed to rend and rut, the bear that lived behind his eyes. Hannibal would eventually open that cage, whether it took him hours or months or years, but it was up to Will to destroy the lock.

He hoped for that freedom for Hannibal, the freedom to want and to ask and to have, and to know that his want would be seen and returned. He was at once seized with the knowledge that he desired Hannibal’s happiness and contentment as much as he desired his own. He took the thought and held it in his hand, gently, letting it be. There was no more fight in him for this sort of thing. They were together and they cared and they wanted, and that’s how it would be.

He turned his head and pressed an open kiss to the bend of Hannibal’s neck, gentle and sweet. Under his arm, he felt Hannibal take a deep rumbling breath, slowly coming back to consciousness. Will continued to kiss up his neck, feeling Hannibal turn his head to provide better access.

After a minute, Hannibal shifted his legs and then his torso, rolling over to face Will, eyes calm and sleepy. He hesitantly brought his hand up to caress the side of Will’s face, and Will turned into the touch. At Will’s acceptance, Hannibal grew more bold, cradling him, grazing his fingertips through his curls. His thumb traced over the deep red scar on Will’s cheek lazily, with no real intent. They lay like that for a long minute, just seeing, feeling, existing in the other’s presence.

Eventually, Will moved forward and pressed his lips lightly to Hannibal’s, just teasing. Hannibal’s breathing picked up minutely. His thumb continued stroking over Will’s cheek as he closed his eyes and returned the kiss, deeper, but still chaste. His lips were plush and wet, and he was so gentle that Will’s chest ached.

Will moved his own hand up to run it through the soft hairs on the nape of Hannibal’s neck, feeling him shudder in return. He pulled back and rested his forehead on Hannibal’s.

“Good morning.”

Hannibal just hmm’d in return, opening his eyes and lazily searching Will’s face.

“French toast sound ok?” Will continued, as he scratched lightly over the back of Hannibal’s scalp.

Hannibal inclined his eyes slightly, barely looking down at Will’s lips before he moved forward to kiss him again. They both gave in to it, mouths pressing slowly and sweetly against each other again and again, unhurried.

Eventually, Hannibal let out a small moan, breaking Will from their trance, and Will pulled back again, fingers carding through the other man’s hair in apology.

“As nice as this is, we’ve got work to do today. Come on, let’s go get breakfast.”

Hannibal’s eyes were glazed and unfocused, but he gave a small nod as Will traced over his cheek and smiled.

Will gave him a final kiss, then rolled over and got out of bed, heading to the bathroom to wash up.

\--

Once they made it downstairs, Will set Hannibal to making the coffee while he gathered bread, eggs, cream, apples, sugar, butter, and cinnamon. Hannibal went about his duty methodically, filling the kettle, putting it on to boil, measuring out four perfect scoops into the French press, gathering two white mugs.

“Can you do that topping you do? The one with the apples?” 

Hannibal, leaning with his back against the counter next to Will while he waited for the water to boil, looked over to him and nodded, eyes light. He turned around and took out his cutting board and knife, starting in on peeling and dicing the apples Will had laid out.

Will watched him, contemplative. Hannibal, dressed this morning in a grey cashmere crewneck over his pajama bottoms, radiated a calmness Will had rarely seen. He stood tall over the counter, shoulders leaned just slightly to reach the cutting board. The movements of his hands were precise and unstressed. His hair was soft and unstyled, almost long enough to tuck behind his ear. Will wondered if he’d cut it or let it grow.

After a minute of this, Will turned his attention back to his own work, grabbing a bowl and cracking four eggs into it. As he began to whisk them, he again looked over to Hannibal’s hands.

“Hannibal?”

“Hmm?”

“I… I meant what I said last night, you know. About helping you. If you’d like that kind of thing.”

Hannibal stopped chopping momentarily, hand still on the knife, then resumed as though nothing had happened.

“You’ll have to be a little more clear, Will. I’m not entirely sure I know what you mean,” he said conversationally.

Will resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he poured a bit of cream into the eggs and continued whisking. Of course Hannibal knew what he meant.

“Hannibal.”

Hannibal looked back at him, face the picture of innocence. Nice to see that he hadn’t entirely lost his smugness to the Atlantic.

“ _What I mean_ , Hannibal, is that jacking off alone in the shower isn’t your only option.”

Hannibal smiled minutely as he went back to his knifework, sliding into the familiar rhythm of work and pointed conversation like it were an old sweater. Will watched as he continued to rock the knife back and forth in smooth, steady motions, cutting whole apples into halves, and then slices, and then cubes.

“Are you not doing the same?” Hannibal’s voice slid into Will’s mind, as smooth as his hands.

He was right, of course, but this wasn’t about Will; or at least, Will didn’t intend for it to be about Will. Conversations with Hannibal, however, had always seemed to take on a life of their own.

“What I do isn’t your concern, Hannibal,” Will countered pointedly.

Hannibal, unbothered, took a stick of butter and halved it into a pan with his knife, letting it drop and begin to melt. He scooped a cup of brown sugar out of the container and overturned it onto the butter, creating a little hill that soon collapsed and pooled into the liquid fat. He reached past Will where he worked and took the powdered cinnamon from in front of him. “Excuse me, Will.”

Hannibal added a good shake of cinnamon to his pan. Will reached out an expectant hand, and Hannibal placed the jar back into it. Will added a little to his custard, then started whisking it again before he spoke. 

“From now on, I want to know when you need to come. No more keeping it to yourself. No more pretending it isn’t happening.”

Hannibal raised his eyebrows a little, considering. He tilted the cutting board into the pan, turning and coating the apples in sugar until they were speckled and brown. It smelled like cold evenings, and Will was young again, sneaking wassail from the kitchen on Christmas Eve.

Will reached out his hand to cover Hannibal’s where it rested on the handle of the pan. He stroked the back with his thumb.

“You can find me, or you can continue to take care of it on your own if that’s what you want, but I’d like to hear about it if you do, understood?”

Hannibal looked from the bubbling pan over to Will’s hand on his own, not saying anything, unreadable.

“Is that understood, Hannibal?”

“Yes.” Hannibal stroked the side of Will’s hand with his own thumb then, eyes turning back to the pan. 

“Good.” Will removed his hand, reaching now for the bread and coating four thick slices in the egg mixture. He heated a second pan and added a pat of butter, putting two pieces of bread down to brown on top of it.

The kettle began to gradually build up to a scream on the stove in front of them, and Hannibal caught it and poured it over the coffee grounds. 

Will turned his bread. Hannibal switched off the burner under the apples.

“Would you bring me some plates?”

Hannibal turned to the cabinet and did, placing them next to Will.

Will turned out the first two pieces of bread, one on each plate. Hannibal followed with his pan, spooning over the sugared apples and letting the sauce soak into all the dips and valleys.

They stood calmly next to each other while Will finished the next set of slices and plated them on top of the first, where Hannibal again topped them with apples.

Will picked up both of the plates, then gestured to the other counter with his chin.

“Bring over the coffee.”

Hannibal did, along with the mugs and cream. He poured for them both, and they sat across from each other at the table and ate, silent and together.

\--

That afternoon, they worked in the garden again. Will brought out the small packets of seeds Hannibal had silently ordered through the internet when he’d seen Will marking off the patch of land last week. All kinds of herbs, plum tomatoes for canning, zucchini for summer salads, okra for stews, cabbage for slow-cooked roasts, carrots and turnips for the cellar in winter.

He asked Hannibal to choose which vegetables and herbs he’d like for the summer, and then to design the layout of the garden before they started. He sat back on an upturned pail and watched, sun on his face even while the early spring chill soaked through his clothes.

Hannibal set out his stack of seeds in rows in front of him, arranging and rearranging them in rows and columns, now shuffling the tomatoes to the east, now thinking better of it and reworking them to the center. He had a deep look of peace and concentration about him, eyes easy and unhurried; he looked genuinely happy, in his sedate way.

When he had his mosaic laid out, he stood and brushed his hands off on his pants, looking at Will expectantly.

“All set?” Will stood to join him.

“Yes.” He gestured over his plot, pointing out different sections of their garden. “We’ll have a good mix of things we can eat fresh now and others we can pickle and can for later.” 

Will looked over it for a second and nodded in agreement. “Let’s aerate, and then we’ll be ready to plant and compost.”

He walked away to gather their equipment and was startled to hear Hannibal respond from behind him, “Show me, and I’ll do my best.”

Will looked back at Hannibal then and found him small and guileless, eyes soft, bangs hanging over his forehead. Will nodded.

“Alright.”

They could do this, they could wear these clothes and be these people. Whether this was an act on Hannibal’s part didn’t matter, and Will realized that it never had. All they had was what they said and did, and right now, this is who they’d decided to be.

He picked up the rolling aerator and pushed it along the ground a couple of times to demonstrate.

“You can start with this. Press it into the soil and push. Understand?”

He handed it to Hannibal, who took it, nodding. Hannibal walked a few steps up the side of the garden with it, little flecks of dirt coming out and settling on the hems of his pant legs.

“Good, just like that. You work your way around the garden, and I’ll make us a wheelbarrow of compost.”

Hannibal kept going. Will watched him lazily in between shovelfuls of compost, trying to ignore the flex of Hannibal’s thighs as he worked, the tight grip of his hands on the aerator. 

Once they’d both finished their tasks, they reconvened at the northwest corner of the garden. Will picked up the seed packet from the top left corner of Hannibal’s grid, ripped it open, and handed it to Hannibal. Hannibal poured a seed out and looked at it, tiny, nearly lost on the flatrock mesa of his hand.

He then crouched down and dug a tiny hole in the dirt, a break in the surface tension. Hannibal followed, dropping the small seed into the indention. Will brushed his hand over the dirt he’d displaced, pushing it back into the hole, restoring the equilibrium.

They worked their way around the garden like this, digging, planting, covering, down the west side and back up in column after column. They were crouched so near each other that Will felt Hannibal’s body heat in the chilly air, and when he leaned forward to cover a seed, he felt Hannibal’s breath on his neck. Their hands brushed several times as they crossed paths, and Will felt Hannibal’s lungs pause every time it happened.

They went on like that, giving and taking and creating together, making their own small world. When they reached the southeast corner and planted the bottom right packet from Hannibal’s plan, they stood and faced the garden.

“We’ll want to spread a little fertilizer over now, and then we’re done until the plants start to come up.”

Hannibal gazed passively over their work. Will walked over to the wheelbarrow and Hannibal followed him after a moment, waiting for direction.

“There’s no real art to this, just get a shovelful and spread it thinly and evenly. This part should go quickly.”

Hannibal nodded and picked up his shovel. They both worked on the west side, then shifted the wheelbarrow to the center to do the middle third, then moved it once more to finish the east side. Soon the whole patch was covered in rich humus, dead matter ready to cycle back and turn into life.

Will held out a hand for Hannibal’s shovel then and took their equipment to the shed. When he came back, he found Hannibal standing in the same spot, still looking out over the new square of dirt. He stood by him and put a hand on Hannibal’s shoulder. “That was much easier going with two. Thank you, Hannibal.”

Hannibal remained silent. 

“Let’s go get cleaned up, hmm?” Will removed his hand and turned to go back into the house. Hannibal lingered for another long minute, then followed Will back inside. 

Will momentarily got the sense that they’d already done this, that they hadn’t yet started, that they were already in the middle of harvest. He shook his head to clear it, and walked upstairs to shower.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect the next bit to earn its rating~
> 
> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	8. Chapter 8

Will took his time in the shower, letting himself enjoy the heat and the press of soap over his skin.

He thought briefly about stroking himself to hardness, about relieving some of the pressure that had built up after being so close to Hannibal all day. While washing his groin, he paused and cupped his soft cock, lazily fingering the head and feeling a stir of interest, then let go, continuing on to soap his legs and feet. Today he’d hold off, curious to see where their earlier conversations would lead them. Curious to see how affected Hannibal was, and how much he’d let it show.

He was still learning to deal with this want, trying to pace himself and wade into it slowly, though his blood was dense with it. There was a place in him that wanted to gorge himself on it, to rut into Hannibal until they were both sticky and sweaty and spent, broken and incapable of speech. To let Hannibal rut into him until that spark of need in his eyes was extinguished, until they were whole and home in each other.

He wanted them to fuck hard and fast until the sheets were smeared with cum, and at the same time, he wanted them to hold each other gently, slowly and sweetly coaxing each other to a cresting orgasm after hours of soft touches.

Hannibal’s scent faded from his skin and his hair as he washed, and he mourned it, needed it back. He wanted to turn off the shower and go find him, hold him tight, shove his face into his shoulder, his armpit, the bend of his knee. He wanted to bathe himself in Hannibal until he couldn’t scour himself clean again, until their skin was the same.

\--

After he finally stepped out of the shower, pink and clean and a little overheated, Will grabbed a towel and began to dry off. He walked into the bedroom still towelling off his face, blind for the moment, and heard a wet, rhythmic sound to his right, accompanied by labored breathing. He opened his eyes. The sounds blurred into deep purples in the back rooms of his mind, and his heartbeat was a ringing gong in his skull.

Hannibal was laid out on the bed on his back, knees bent. One hand was lazily stroking his cock, the other reached under his leg, finger just breaching his hole. He was breathing heavily, eyes clenched, belly tense, heels already digging into the bed. He let out a grunt that trailed into a moan as his finger disappeared a little deeper, throwing his head back and exposing his neck.

Will flushed red. Hannibal opened his eyes, looking at him with naked need, whimpering as his palm passed over the head of his cock. Breathing picking up, Will looked back at him with a nod, accepting the offered fruit.

He dropped his towel as he walked over to the bed, noticing the hitch in Hannibal’s breath at his silent approval. The slick sound of Hannibal’s hand echoed profanely in the sacristy of their bedroom.

Will sat on the bed to Hannibal’s right and looked him over. Hannibal’s chest was flushed, his nipples peaked to a beautiful rose color. The head of his cock was dark red where it appeared and reappeared through the tight tunnel of his hand. He looked like he'd been at this for a while, though Will knew it couldn't have been longer than the fifteen minutes he'd been in the shower.

Ignoring the growing heaviness between his own legs, he twisted his torso to lean closer over Hannibal, hand coming up to stroke his cheek and run through his hair. Looking into his eyes, he saw earthquakes and mudslides and homes swallowed up in flood. He came close to hover over his mouth, tugging gently now at his hair, his air mingling with Hannibal’s wet, labored breath. “Beautiful, Hannibal.”

Hannibal grunted at that, a thick, hungry sound.

“You’ve been worked up this week, out in the garden. I could tell. I’m proud of you for taking care of yourself like this.”

Hannibal's eyes drifted shut, lashes hovering over his cheeks. He was panting now into Will’s mouth, just near enough to kissing to be painful, but he took no initiative to close the gap.

“How does it feel?”

Hannibal winced, his right hand speeding up, tugging harder now. Will was slowly learning that his forthrightness had a powerful effect on Hannibal. He tucked it away to explore in the future.

“I asked you a question, Hannibal. How does it feel to give yourself pleasure? How does it feel to show it to me?”

Hannibal groaned into Will’s mouth, “...it’s ...it’s like salve to a burn. Like ice.”

Unable to stop himself any longer, Hannibal strained his neck up and attempted to press his mouth to Will’s. Will pulled back, tutting as he withdrew, but leaving his hand against his cheek, gentle.

“I didn't say you could taste yet.” Hannibal whined, and his hips jerked. Will settled back into a sitting position, again watching Hannibal passively.

Hannibal’s left hand was stroking his cock, running all the way down to his balls and then up to the tip, pulling the foreskin over the head and back down as he went, over and over. His right hand continued to work slowly into his ass, awkwardly reached around his leg, still only two knuckles deep.

“Look at me. Tell me what you're feeling.”

Hannibal opened his eyes from where he’d unconsciously clenched them shut again. Will saw in them that he was trying to maintain a calm facade, to sandpaper over the buckles and knots in his surface. Hannibal took a deep, shaky breath. “I feel, again, on the edge of some great bluff.”

Will studied him for a minute, brow furrowed. He lightly scratched Hannibal’s scalp where his fingers still rested in his hair. The only sounds were Hannibal’s slick hand and his labored breathing. Hannibal looked back, naked, questioning. Curious.

This was something they didn't talk about: the cliff, and the dragon, and the fall, and the drowning, and the coughing, and the bruises, and the joy, and the delight, and the beauty, and the holy streams of morning light. This was a moment they had left on the shore, and a moment they still lived in every day. This was their mutual prison, and they each other’s jailer.

Now, Hannibal was showing that red and bleeding part inside himself, and Will, faced with the choice, knew it was time to throw off a loop of the chain that wrapped around both their tender bellies and rubbed them raw.

He stroked the ridge of Hannibal’s cheek with his thumb. “Can I help?”

Hannibal let out all his breath at once, and Will felt, rather than saw, the motion of his hand stutter, slow, and finally stop. He looked down to see Hannibal holding himself firmly by the base, his cock hovering full and red above his belly, a small bead of precum gathered at the tip. Hannibal’s right arm stilled as well, no longer working himself open, idle at his side. Hannibal gazed at him now with calculating interest, ready and willing to let Will take this wherever he wanted. So close to coming, and instantly ready to give that power to Will. Will’s head reeled with it.

He looked back at Hannibal with honest eyes, here with him, present in the world of this bed. He travelled his hand down from Hannibal’s cheek to put the first two fingers against Hannibal’s plush bottom lip, pressing into it hard enough to leave indentations. He felt Hannibal’s tongue come out to meet them, soft and curious. He pushed them in further.

“Suck.”

Hannibal did, lifting his head forward and pulling Will’s fingers in the rest of the way on a moan. He closed his lips around them and ran his tongue firmly up the pads, drenching them in saliva. He was hot and wet, and Will remembered the velvet feeling of it on his cock.

After a minute, Hannibal pressed in with his tilted teeth just slightly, black eyes watching Will to gauge his reaction. Will was breathing a little heavier now, and he felt his cock twitch. Hannibal kept sucking, biting down lightly, enough to keep Will in place.

“Fuck, Hannibal.”

Hannibal just sucked harder, now moving up and down Will’s fingers, drawing them in and out, over and over.

“I’m going to touch you. Are you ready?”

Hannibal moaned and nodded, mouth full, cheeks hollowed out and lips swollen.

“I've never done this kind of thing for someone else, so you're going to have guide me a little. Can you nod for me when I do something that feels good?”

Hannibal nodded yes, now licking up the sides and between, tongue working hard.

“Good. Can you shake your head when I do something that doesn't feel good? Can you be honest for me?”

Hannibal continued nodding, now swallowing harshly, creating a new and intense pressure in his mouth that had Will’s head spinning.

“Good.” Will pressed down onto Hannibal’s tongue, stilling it, then slowly withdrew his dripping fingers, watching as a string of saliva connected them to Hannibal’s bottom lip. He felt filthy and alive with it. Maintaining eye contact with Hannibal, he shifted and moved his hand down to the soft curve of Hannibal’s ass, squeezing it gently. Hannibal’s left hand was still holding the base of his cock firmly, trying to hold back from orgasm. He reached his now idle right arm over to Will’s lap with intent.

“Ah, no, no touching. Not yet.” Will reached out to hold Hannibal’s wandering hand, keeping him occupied and grounding him.

Hannibal’s eyes narrowed a little at the rebuke, but he obeyed, his hand gripping Will’s tightly as Will moved up to stroke his perineum. Will pressed in lightly, just teasing for a minute, then circled his hole, delighting in the stuttered cry Hannibal gave as he was breached. It was a new and foreign feeling, to be inside Hannibal like this; more visceral and intimate than if he’d put a knife to his belly and reached inside, though no less satisfying.

Will kept on, pushing in to the second knuckle, taking advantage of Hannibal’s earlier efforts. The heat of it was intense, forbidden. He had a flash of where this could go, where it would go and would have gone in millions of timelines, and then replaced himself in the present moment, as perfect and imperfect as any of them.

“Good, Hannibal?” Hannibal, eyes closed, choked around a groan, head nodding vehemently.

Will had found himself surprised at just how vocal Hannibal could be in bed, the symphony of labored moans and grunts that accompanied his pleasure, rough and physical and uninhibited. It was a stark change from his usual laconic and locked state; his mouth and eyes were open like this, in bed with Will, honest and needy. Will was hungry for it.

He continued fingering Hannibal, moving his finger in and out and side to side, his other hand maintaining a firm grip on Hannibal’s free one. When Hannibal was loose and pliant, he added a second spit-slick finger, working it in slowly, letting Hannibal get used to its presence. Hannibal was moaning, small vocalizations and needy breaths escaping his open mouth.

Once he felt Hannibal begin to relax a little under his second finger, he pushed further in and crooked his fingers upwards, remembering where this sort of thing felt good when he’d explored his own body. He searched around a little bit until Hannibal cried out, the hand around the base of his cock gripping even tighter as a new rush of precum welled out the tip and pooled on his belly.

Will smiled as he continued to work his prostate slowly, fucking his fingers in and out and pressing up with an easy rhythm.

“Good?”

Hannibal whimpered, his closed eyes filling with tears, fluid leaking steadily from his cock in pulses.

“I want to hear you, Hannibal. Does this feel good?” Hannibal moaned at the command, nodding again, a labored _yes_ leaving his mouth unbidden. It was stark and devout, a dropping kneeler at the call to worship.

“I want you to fuck your hand again, Hannibal. I want you to come for me.”

Hannibal nodded and obeyed without hesitation, letting the floodgates down and stroking himself hard and fast. Will could tell he was so, so close to coming already, his balls drawn up tight and firm, his rhythm erratic. He was grunting now with every breath, gripping Will’s free hand tightly. Will continued to fuck him with his fingers, timing himself with Hannibal’s strokes and pressing harder now over his prostate.

“Look at you, Hannibal, you’re a mess. You’re beautiful.”

Will leaned over again to kiss Hannibal, wet and hot. When his tongue pressed into Hannibal’s mouth, he felt Hannibal’s hips stutter as he lost control and started to come. He felt his hands, each encased by Hannibal, bathed in waves of clenching pressure as Hannibal rode out his orgasm, eyes shut tight, a wounded, harrowed sound spilling into Will’s open mouth. Will kissed him through it, withdrawing his fingers as he felt Hannibal slow and still. Finally, Hannibal came to rest on the bed, hair sticking to his forehead, belly smeared with cum, chest flushed and heaving.

Will gave him a last chaste kiss before pulling back, continuing to hold Hannibal’s hand as his pulse slowed and his veins turned liquid and smooth. He rubbed the back of his hand gently with his thumb until Hannibal opened his eyes again, newborn, his view of the forest sharpening into leaves for the first time.

“Good?”

Hannibal gave a slow, liquored nod. He looked over Will’s face with tranquil purpose, needing to swaddle it with his mind for the thousandth time, and for the first.

He gazed lazily over the rest of Will, flexing his hand when he noticed Will was still hard. Will shook his head and moved Hannibal’s hand back to rest on his belly. “Not now.”

Hannibal’s forehead knit together a little, obviously not pleased, but he accepted the order and relaxed his hand again.

“Why don’t you go get yourself a shower. Come downstairs when you’re done, I’ll have dinner ready.”

Will moved off the bed, heading to the dresser and slipping into underwear and comfortable pants, trying to will his erection down. He looked at Hannibal, now sitting up from his prone position, and added, “If you still want to touch me after dinner, we can renegotiate then.”

He didn’t miss the way Hannibal’s mouth opened just a little, tongue coming out to wet his bottom lip.

“Shower.”

Hannibal shut his mouth and nodded minutely before getting off the bed and walking towards the bathroom. Once he’d closed the door, Will left and went downstairs to start dinner.

\--

From the kitchen window, he saw a doe, her speckled yearling at her flank, ears twitching. The doe walked into the woods and her fawn followed, delicately mimicking her steps through the underbrush. He watched after them until they disappeared from sight, swallowed by dark leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Expect a small future-set timestamp with these two a little later in the week for the #justfuckmeup event~
> 
>  
> 
> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being patient on this update, friends! It's an extra long one, enjoy :D

Will stood at the kitchen window and watched as dusk set in around the cabin. The night noises rose around him in intervals: frogs began their stuttered, echoing calls, a cricket under the patio chirped its high bass rhythm, the owls mourned, solitary.

He’d put the remainder of yesterday’s chicken and potatoes in the warm oven to heat, and the smell of it began to fill the room. He was hungry. Worse, he was getting impatient for Hannibal to finish his shower and join him for dinner. In the tidal wake of the warmth they’d shared, he was loathe to leave Hannibal alone; the void by his side ached dully. He regretted not showering with him, not remaining with him. Not letting him reciprocate.

His erection had flagged by now, but a tingle went up his spine as he thought about Hannibal crumbling under him, about the thickness of his heartbeat, gasping and coming and enveloping him. To give that to Hannibal, to break down his walls and let him want; to be the object of that want; to allow it to happen. He felt hot and roiling, wolfen.

As he went to set the table, placing forks and knives on their appropriate sides, he suddenly smelled white bar soap and, under it, the pure scent of skin. Warmth pooled in his belly, and he turned to face Hannibal, who had dressed for dinner in grey slacks and a navy pullover. He was flushed from the shower, his damp hair brushed back from his face.

Will felt comparably underdressed in his pajama bottoms and loose curls, though there was no one but themselves to see.

Will gave him a small smile, and gestured to the oven. “Dinner’s about to come out. Have a seat.”

Hannibal did, expressionless, elegant, economic in his movements.

Will took the chicken out of the oven and served them, then went to open a bottle of wine. He poured Hannibal a glass and then poured himself two fingers of bourbon, one ice cube in the bottom.

Hannibal looked at the wine for a moment, considering, then picked it up and took a sip. He closed his eyes and luxuriated for a small moment before turning to his plate and wordlessly cutting into his chicken.

Will did the same, his whiskey smoky and sweet and grounding. He took a few bites and then drank again, looking up at Hannibal, who was behind a thin veil, focused elsewhere.

“Hannibal?” Will asked, unassuming, straightforward.

Hannibal paused, his knife and fork poised in his hands on either side of his plate. He looked up at Will, eyebrows raised, calm and expectant. At Will’s hesitation, he bit his bottom lip lightly, maintaining eye contact with Will as he let it go, his sharp teeth just a momentary flash. A spark went through Will at the sight, and he tamped it down.

Steadier than he felt, Will gestured between them and asked, “What is this? What do you want out of this?”

A small smile crept into Hannibal’s eyes, and he put his silverware down to reach over and lightly swirl his wine, watching it climb the sides and back down again. He raised the glass to his nose and inhaled before drinking, then put the glass down again and looked into Will’s eyes, steady.

“I want to please you.”

“Is that all?” Will put down his own fork and knife and cradled his whiskey in his hand, knocking the ice against the side.

“Isn’t that enough?” Hannibal kept his gaze, his eyes suddenly ember, hot and low.

“For me or for you?” Will returned casually, at home with this kind of volley after so many years of it.

Hannibal turned his attention to Will’s glass, watching the ice ripple its tow surface as he contemplated for a long moment. When he finally spoke, he looked back up at Will, softer, wondrous:

“ _Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita_. We find ourselves midway through the journey of life, Will. Which realms we’ve passed and which we’ve yet to enter are unclear. We may now descend into hell as scholastic peers, or make the climb to heaven as beatific lovers. I find the form our journey takes irrelevant, as long as I pass it by your side.”

The chill in Will’s blood warmed at Hannibal’s words, and his veins rushed through his ears. “And beyond that? What fulfills you?”

Hannibal replied, not unkindly, “If I may, Will, I’d turn the question back to you. What need does our arrangement fill for you, outside the sexual?”

Will paused, stilling his hand on the tumbler, unsurprised by this turn in the conversation. He could almost see Hannibal fully suited and sitting across from him in a black leather chair, legs crossed. He felt a prick of adrenaline at the memory, a flash of light just at the base of his neck. “I… I enjoy seeing you let go, Hannibal. I enjoy holding your trust.”

“Does that thought give you pleasure, that my mind and body are yours to do with as you see fit?”

Will tapped his finger on the side of his glass and then put it down, breaking Hannibal’s gaze. He took up his knife and fork again and cut into his chicken.

“You’re calm like this. I want that for you. There’s a certain pleasure in that for me.”

Hannibal hummed and returned to his own dinner. His shower-slicked hair had begun to come loose, and a fraction of it slipped over his forehead. He didn’t fix it.

After a minute, Will paused again, utensils in hand. “Tell me, Hannibal. Does it give you pleasure?”

Hannibal stopped eating again, a flush creeping up his neck. He took a moment, concentrating on the motion of Will’s finger over the spine of his knife, and then replied, “I would enter you and live inside you, Will. I would be the blood filling your aorta if such a thing were possible. If my ceding control gives you even a spark of contentment, then I would lose all autonomy in my submission.”

Will felt his lip quirk up the smallest bit. “Your _submission_. Is that what this is?”

“If the label makes you uncomfortable, we don’t have to use it, but better to acknowledge the truth of what we’re doing.”

“Huh.” Will watched Hannibal’s eyes follow his hand as he set down his knife and lifted his glass. He took a sip, letting the sharp warmth of it coat his throat.

“Yes.”

Will set down his whiskey down again, watching his finger cut a line through the sweat on the outside of the glass. “I can’t say I have any particular feelings about the label. If that’s what we’re doing, then that’s what we’re doing. And that seems to be what we’re doing, if the last week has been any indication.”

“Yes, it does.”

He looked away from the glass and up at Hannibal, and waited until Hannibal did the same, even, honest, both here in this.

“How do you feel about that, Hannibal?”

Hannibal cocked his head and snorted a small laugh. Will looked back, eyebrows raised.

“Hannibal.”

“I feel that, if we’ve found a way to be open and intimate, then I’m content with whatever form that may take.” His eyes warmed indulgently, just a little, softness creeping into his face in measures.

“And this form, specifically? _Submission_? Tell me, Hannibal. I need to hear it from you.”

Hannibal’s nostrils flared, a tinge of pink rising in his cheeks at Will’s tone. There it was.

“Yes, Will, submission. Or perhaps more accurately, _dominance_.”

Will smiled a little at the admission. “I suppose that _would_ be the other side of the coin, wouldn't it?” He shook his head a little, surprised by his relief at saying the words aloud, then sobered himself to look at Hannibal gingerly, sincerely. “Will you promise to let me know if your feelings change?”

Hannibal inclined his head just a fraction. “Will you?”

Will gave another small nod and broke their eye contact, reaching again for his whiskey.

“Yes. Now finish your dinner.”

Hannibal nodded and went back to his plate.

\--

They finished eating silently, and afterwards sat at the kitchen table nursing their drinks, watching the leaves move in the ink night outside the window. It was slow and still, and Will closed his eyes, content. Under the tympanic flow of nature outside, he heard a light rhythmic tapping to his right, and guessed at Hannibal’s nervous fidget. He waited, letting him navigate the bends and switches in the corridors of his mind uninterrupted.

This went on for a few minutes, the tapping continuing in fits and starts, until finally Will heard Hannibal take a deep breath, and – 

“Will?”

Will opened his eyes and looked over at him evenly. Hannibal’s hands had stilled, but Will could see where he’d been gently worrying the butt of his knife against the tabletop.

“Yes?”

“There’s one more thing.” Hannibal kept his eyes down, still focused on his utensils. “I’d like to ask the same of you that you’ve asked of me. That you tell me when you’re aroused. That you let me help.”

“Hannibal…”

Hannibal looked up to meet his gaze, naked. Will saw in his mind the image of a wolf who has rolled over to expose its belly.

“Hannibal, I’m not… I don’t want this to be about me. It’s about your pleasure.”

Hannibal averted his eyes again, now worrying at a knot in the table’s surface. “Your sexual fulfillment _is_ my pleasure, Will. Or had you forgotten?”

Will blushed, remembering Hannibal coming in his pants like a teenager. His abdomen was warm at the thought of it, at the thought of Hannibal’s hot mouth around him, moaning. At the thought of him shuddering and spilling untouched, uncontrolled in his want.

“No. I haven’t forgotten.”

“Then that’s a condition of mine. I want to know your desires, I want you to tell me what you like, how to touch you. I want to be the only sustenance you would need.”

Will could feel himself becoming hard again, his cock throbbing at the want in Hannibal’s voice. He nodded. “Okay then. That will be on the table. Do you… is there anything else you think we should discuss? Are there any, um... any restrictions you might have?” He stumbled, his steady front giving way to nerves as this conversation became more real.

Hannibal stopped his fidget and looked out the window again. He spoke quietly, almost too low for Will to hear. “I can’t think of a thing you could do that I wouldn’t allow.”

Will let his statement sit for a moment, buoyed by the years behind them, before steadying himself to drag them into deeper water together.

“Are you… interested in pain? Is that something you would enjoy?”

Will saw Hannibal’s nostrils flare and his fist clench momentarily.

“By your hand? I’ve considered it, a great many more times than I’d like to admit.”

“Is that thought arousing to you? That I could cause you pain?”

“Highly.”

Will was fully hard now, the thought of Hannibal subjected under him sending sparks through his limbs.

“Are you aroused right now? Discussing it?”

Hannibal finally looked over at him. His eyes were black. He worried at his bottom lip and then soothed over it with his tongue.

“What do you want, Hannibal? Do you still want to touch me?”

Hannibal took a sharp breath. “Yes. Very much so.”

“Stand up.”

Hannibal did, moving his chair back from the table and facing Will. Will could see how hard he was already, just from their conversation. 

“In front of me.”

Hannibal came over to stand in front of Will’s chair, hands obediently behind his back. Will held his gaze as he moved his hand up to cup his own cock, squeezing through the thin material of his pajama bottoms. Hannibal was unable to keep himself from glancing down to watch, breathing picking up at the sight.

“Ah! Eyes up here. Look at me.”

A small whine escaped Hannibal’s throat, but he obeyed, locking eyes with Will again.

“Can you get off again tonight?”

Hannibal nodded.

“Good. Take off your sweater, then your pants.”

Hannibal did, folding them neatly and placing them on the seat of his chair. He returned to stand in front of Will again, resuming his submissive posture.

“Keep your eyes up here.”

Hannibal nodded. Will broke his gaze to travel the length of Hannibal’s body, trusting Hannibal to obey. He kept stroking himself lightly through his pajamas, taking in Hannibal’s sturdy frame, his tensed shoulders, the stark outline of his hard cock in his black briefs, the twitching muscles in his thigh.

“You’re so responsive, Hannibal. You’re so good for me.”

He saw Hannibal’s belly tense and release at the praise.

“Touch yourself.”

Hannibal took a deep breath and relaxed his right arm from behind his back, tentatively running his fingers along the underside of his bulge, gasping when he reached the head.

“Good. Are your eyes still on mine?”

“Yes.”

“Keep them there. Stroke yourself harder.”

Hannibal did, and Will followed suit as he watched, both moaning in tandem. Will felt a spot of precum beginning to grow on the front of his pants. It was overwhelming, the way he could bend Hannibal like this, the way his call could draw an echoing chorus out of Hannibal’s throat.

“You could come like this, couldn’t you? Standing in the kitchen, jacking off in your underwear.”

Hannibal groaned in response. Will looked back up at his eyes, which still focused tightly on Will’s. They were black and pained, desperate and wild. A caged wolf pacing, its prey unreachable on the other side of the bars.

“And so soon after you’ve already gotten off this evening. Beautiful.”

Hannibal looked so close already, even with his limited and clothed touch. A part of Will wanted to see him spill right now, to make a mess of his briefs and the kitchen floor; though there was a bigger part that wanted to see this through, to see what could happen if he took them further.

“Stop.”

Hannibal did, immediately. His chest heaved, and his mouth hung open, panting.

“Take them off.”

Hannibal did, maintaining eye contact the entire time, leaving his briefs in a pool on the floor.

“Go stand against the island. Turn around, hands on the counter.”

Hannibal looked down, then took the few steps to the kitchen island and gripped its edge, his cock hanging heavy and red before him. Will stood then and stripped, walking up behind Hannibal, putting a steady hand on the rise of his hip. He took a minute to admire him, laid bare and willing. The dip in his spine, the scars marring his skin, the broad plane of his shoulders. Entirely his.

“Fuck, Hannibal. Do you know how beautiful you are?”

Will ran his hand up Hannibal’s side, thumbing gently over the pink bullet wound, delighting in Hannibal’s sudden and uncontrolled intake of breath. He leaned forward to place a kiss at the top of Hannibal’s spine, and spoke softly into his neck, almost a whisper, “Do you know how hard I was when I was watching you get off this afternoon?”

Hannibal choked out a moan.

Will pulled back and ran his fingers lightly down Hannibal’s spine, taking stock of him, feeling his small intraspinal muscles twitch through layers of fascia and skin. His path took him through the ridged and keloidal tissue of the large brand on Hannibal’s back, and Hannibal shivered at the light touch, the rebirth of skin that was long dead.

Will followed his fingers’ path with his lips then, kissing down along his back and up again, biting lightly and sucking when he reached the join of his neck. He slotted himself against Hannibal from behind and pressed his cock against Hannibal’s backside as he whispered into his ear, “I’m going to use you. Would you like that?”

Hannibal grunted out a rush of breath, knuckles already clenched white where they gripped the countertop. He mumbled something that didn’t sound at all like English.

“Was that a yes?”

Hannibal paused to breathe deeply, already trembling. “Yes.”

“Good. Keep your hands where they are.”

Will held Hannibal by his hips and mouthed gently at the top of his spine as he began to rut lightly against his ass. Hannibal pressed back against him, desperately seeking more contact. Will sucked a red spot onto his neck and laved it with his tongue, tasting soap and sweat. He whispered into his flushed skin, “Close your thighs for me.”

Hannibal lowered his head and moaned, taking a moment to come back to himself before narrowing his stance. He stepped back a little to put more weight on his arms for stability. Will rubbed his hip reassuringly.

“Always so obedient.”

Will took his own cock in hand and moved forward, pressing into the crevice between Hannibal’s thighs, just below the crease of his ass. He heard himself let out a gasp at the shock of it, the intensity. It was a new feeling, tight and hot and a little rough and entirely wonderful. He pulled back and did it again, farther this time, harder, running along Hannibal’s perineum. Hannibal hung his head low and groaned, leaning into the counter and then pushing back to meet him on his next thrust.

They set a quick and steady rhythm together, and Will felt his movements becoming slick as he began to leak precum. It was so base, almost bestial, to use Hannibal’s body to get off like this, to treat him like an object; and at the same time, the whole thing was remarkably intimate. Will was breathing hot onto Hannibal’s nape, ruffling the ends of his hair with every breath. Hannibal was grunting and huffing, leaning into his thrusts, bracing them both against the counter with his thick, veined forearms.

“Fuck, you feel good, Hannibal.”

A low syllable left Hannibal’s mouth, and he pushed back harder against Will, needing more. His muscular thighs were like a vice around the head of Will’s cock, humid and slick now with their efforts. With every few strokes, Will felt himself push far enough to reach Hannibal’s balls, causing them both to stutter and moan. He was already close, hips snapping more rapidly now, running more on animal instinct than on any kind of conscious intent.

“You’ve been so good for me, keeping your hands and eyes to yourself. I bet you’re dying to touch your cock right now.”

Hannibal didn’t respond, just kept on with his rhythm, muttering a string of foreign words through his labored grunts. Will couldn’t see his face from this position, but he did see the pink-flushed tips of his ears through his fringe of sweaty silver hair. He was beautiful like this, out of time, the cracks in him mortared in gold.

Will felt his own climb to orgasm beginning, and finally moved his hand to wrap it firmly around Hannibal’s cock. Hannibal cried out and thrust into Will’s tight hand, hips bucking uncontrolled. Feeling the throb of Hannibal’s heartbeat through his delicate skin heightened everything, bringing Will that much closer to the edge. Will had the brief thought that it should be odd, to touch another man’s cock like this, but it felt just like touching his own, like they were a linked circuit.

Will’s rhythm became increasingly erratic, Hannibal’s pleasure suddenly doubling his own. He pushed forward mindlessly, desperately, needing to come, and as he gave a particularly hard thrust, he felt the cock in his hand suddenly throb and jerk. Hannibal’s body seized up, and his thighs tensed impossibly tight with his release, tipping Will over the edge with him. He shouted into Hannibal’s back as he came, leaving himself and looking down on their house from above, seeing how small they were in this place, how from this distance they looked like one person.

He came back to find Hannibal still under him, lax, his heavy breaths slowing and evening. Will let himself stay where he was, hand on Hannibal’s softening cock, panting wetly into the plane of his back. After a minute, loose and warm, he lightly kneaded at Hannibal’s hip. “Turn around.”

Hannibal released himself from the counter and faced Will. He smiled shyly, sharp teeth showing just the smallest bit. Will reached up to brush his hair back from his face, then cradled his cheek, stroking it lightly with his thumb.

“You’re so good, Hannibal.”

He reached up to lightly kiss him, and Hannibal reciprocated, gripping Will around the waist as he did. They pressed together lazily, two beasts after the hunt, bellies warm and fed. When Will broke the kiss, he hugged Hannibal close and tucked his head under Hannibal’s chin.

They rocked there together, hearing their single heartbeat, and under that, the widening delta of night noises.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you missed it, I published a future-set timestamp with these boys for the #justfuckmeup fest a few weeks ago: [Some Holy Spectacle](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7168250). I've grouped these into a series [here](https://archiveofourown.org/series/486140), if you'd like to subscribe and be notified about other Gentle Dom Will one-shots!
> 
> Also, because I'm a nerd who can't be trusted with graph paper, I drew a set of sketches on Tumblr with the layout of the cabin [here](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com/post/146232668258/by-request-of-loshka-here-are-some-sketches-of), featuring A Very Big Deer. :3


	10. Chapter 10

The first thing Will noticed on waking was a heavy pressure on his chest, accompanied by a near-unbearable warmth surrounding his torso. He breathed in deeply and shifted, feeling the weight settle and constrict tighter. Eyes still closed, he reached up to push the covers back, meeting only the firm resistance of Hannibal’s forearm, squeezing tight around his upper stomach. _Oh_.

He sighed and settled down into the embrace, stroking Hannibal’s arm lazily and feeling his steady, rhythmic breaths against his chest, warm and humid. They lay there quietly for a long time, Will letting the intense warmth lull him back into an almost-sleep. Hannibal was still sleeping hard, hand twitching lightly against Will’s side with his dreams, chest pressing heavily down into him with each slow breath.

It was suffocating, hot and sweaty and too much, and Will never wanted it to end. He slipped into light and vivid dreams, his mental image of the bedroom loft twitching into a subterranean cave lined in pine needles, where the soft footfalls of a wolf led him deeper and deeper inside until he couldn’t remember how to get out.

When he woke up again, Hannibal was gone.

\---

Will came down the stairs and found Hannibal in the kitchen, kneading bread dough. He’d already bloomed the yeast, the kitchen full of its heady scent as he stood mixing it together with flour, milk, and wheatberries, a recipe he’d taken to making once a week.

Hannibal leaned over the counter, pressing down powerfully with the heels of his hands, then back up to give the dough a quarter turn and fold and press again. His shoulder blades rose and fell in turns under the soft long-sleeved grey henley he wore, bones and tendons standing out in relief. There was so much strength there, even after the months of injury and recovery. Will knew him capable of rending flesh with his bare hands, knew he’d do so without hesitation to protect this quiet freedom they’d built; he hoped deeply that they’d never have the need, but at the same time, he wanted to witness it, wanted to see his hands dripping in blood, chest heaving as viscera steamed under him. He knew, for the first time, and for the hundredth time, that that’s what he’d always wanted.

Will suddenly needed to taste him, just at the soft skin under the hairline on the back of his neck. He stepped forward into the kitchen from the hallway.

Hannibal’s ears pricked up just the slightest bit, the only sign that he'd heard Will walk up behind him. He turned his head slightly to speak over his shoulder, “We're running low on a few essentials. It's about time to go into town.”

Will came up behind and put his hands on Hannibal's hips, fondling the soft rise of them as he kissed his neck softly, enjoying Hannibal’s sharp intake of breath. “Don't shave. We’ll go on Friday.”

Hannibal exhaled slowly and nodded, then turned his attention back to the dough. Will kissed him again, then moved away with a final squeeze to Hannibal’s hip, stepping away to pour himself some coffee.

Driving down the winding mountain road and into the town of Banner Elk was something they avoided as much as possible. It was as stressful to step out of their quiet and steady routine as it was to put themselves in the public eye, but it was a necessary evil once a month or so. After all, their freezer could only hold so much meat, and even winter root vegetables wouldn’t last forever in the cellar. 

He knew as well as Hannibal did that their faces and identifying marks would have been splashed on newspapers and television broadcasts from Bangor to San Diego by now. Even at home, Will covered up the tight, pink scar on his cheek with his neatly trimmed beard; in town, he’d make an additional effort to wear a low-pulled hat as a diversion from the long white line across his forehead. Hannibal still preferred to remain clean-shaven, though he’d taken to growing out his grey stubble for a few days whenever they left the cabin. The effect really was remarkable, softening the sharpness of his features and covering his faded scars; it was just enough of a disguise to keep people from noticing him or looking twice.

“There’s a frittata in the oven, if you wouldn’t mind serving.” Hannibal spoke conversationally, without lifting his eyes from his work.

Will set down his coffee on the kitchen table and then protected his hand with one of the old green kitchen towels as he pulled breakfast out of the oven. He set the table and sliced the dish into fourths, placing one on each of their plates and putting the rest in the refrigerator for later.

Hannibal, now satisfied with the texture of his dough, moved it to a bowl and covered it with another green towel, then washed his hands and joined Will at the table. They made fleeting eye contact and Hannibal looked away shyly.

“Do you have any projects planned for the day?” Hannibal asked as he poured cream into his coffee.

Taking up his fork, Will paused to think for a moment. Conversation over breakfast was still a very new thing for them, especially this ordinary sort of small talk, and his brain was still a little fuzzy from his deep sleep.

“Nothing major. The fence still needs to be painted, but we’ve done more than enough for one week in the garden, don’t you think?”

He took a bite of eggs and looked over at Hannibal, who was watching as the milky bloom of cream in his coffee muddied the surface.

“Perhaps. We’ve got nothing but time, after all.”

Will allowed himself a small smile. Hannibal was right, of course.

“If we’re going into town, I’d probably better clean out the shed so we can finally take all those old tools to a metal yard.”

“Will you be replacing them?”

“Do we have the money?” Will asked, now looking at him again.

Hannibal just glanced up briefly through his fringe of hair, then went right back to his eggs.

Of course they had enough money. Will had no idea where this money was or where it had come from, but any time they needed to pay for gas, or fill the freezer with beef filet steaks, or quickly and quietly acquire new Carolina ID cards, Hannibal’s hand was mysteriously filled with cash, and things happened just that easily. At one point during their first week together, Hannibal had left their cash-paid fake-name motel room and come back an hour later, bleeding through the gauze around his abdomen, but carrying a paper bag full of medical supplies and narcotics; Will had decided right then that he’d be better off not questioning this kind of thing.

“We’ll stop at the hardware store,” Hannibal said, sipping his coffee.

Will nodded and turned his mind to making a mental list of the things he needed – no, _wanted_ – for the shed. In this world, with Hannibal, needs and wants blurred into an amorphous mass. The line between them no longer really mattered in any real sense, beyond their own contentment.

They finished their breakfast quietly and broke apart afterwards to go about their days, Will heading out to work in the yard, Hannibal staying inside to finish his bread and clean the house.

\---

On his way out, Will paused at the threshold of the patio, breathing in deeply, smelling green shoots and timid new kits. He felt Hannibal’s eyes on him through the window as he walked across the grass to the shed.

He thought for a second about climbing into the old pickup truck and just driving away, finding his own home far from this; at the same time, he thought about going back into the house and having Hannibal on the counter, pressing into him and hearing him gasp and moan, drawing patterns in the flour with their hands and leaving white prints all over each other’s bodies. Both had already happened in some world and were still to happen in another and were not yet realized in this one. By now, Will knew better than to think he had a choice.

He kept walking.

The shed was still something of a mess, most of the tools left here by the previous owners, who’d abandoned the property years before. Since he and Hannibal had been here, Will had made do with the old, rusted equipment, but it was all in bad need of replacement. He’d been wanting to take stock and reorganize the space for months now, and the impending trip to town finally gave him an excuse.

He went in, instantly bathed in the smell of years of disuse: layers of metal and mildew and dust, the rot of useful things sitting idle and untouched. The whole thing was a little overwhelming, but he thought it best to go about it systematically, starting at the front left corner, where he first cleared cobwebs out of his way to unearth an old push mower. He brought it out of the shed and put it just outside the door, then went back in for more. Soon, he had a neat row of tools and equipment on the ground outside, a row that was neater than their present state really deserved, but even so, it gave him some peace of mind to have them ordered and accounted for. It was a small measure of control, easily imposed.

Once the floor was cleared of clutter, he took a broom off one of the hooks on the wall and swept it out, sending dirt flying out of the open doorway and onto the lawn. The corners were full of dead insects and old rusted screws and nuts, and all these he swept into a pile in the center of the room and then into a dustpan to be thrown away. Along the right wall sat a waist-high workbench, and he swept this off too, getting lost in mentally designing shelving units for the walls as he went.

He would put a couple of long shelves along the left wall, waist-height and higher, with room for bigger equipment underneath; along the right, above and beside the bench, he would create cubbies and drawers for smaller tools, nuts, bolts, seed packets, paintbrushes, and anything else they might need over the years. There could be places for each category of thing, each type of project, so that either of them would only have to go to the front left corner to mow the lawn, or to the right of the bench to pick out winter vegetables. He felt calm looking at the space like that, creating safe places for abstract concepts and necessities.

When the whole room was as clean as he could get it with the broom, and the smell was beginning to dissipate with the breeze coming through the open door, he walked out to the lawn again to work on the unearthed equipment. As he looked over the neat row, his eye was caught by a flash of reflected sunlight. On top of the toolbox sat a fresh glass of lemonade, sweat beading down the sides and glinting in the noon sun.

He turned to look for Hannibal, and found him standing back on the patio already. He had the living room rug thrown over the porch railing and was beating the dust out of it, months of their healing and breathing each other’s air trapped in its fibers. Hannibal didn’t look up, just kept on with his work, his own glass of lemonade sitting on the windowsill.

Will stood and took a long drink, watching Hannibal from a distance. His shoulders bore the brunt of the effort, as his core was still slightly destabilized from the bullet wound; they were powerful and steady, Appalachian rock worn down over centuries, but still living and proud. He laid into the rug again and again with a length of wood that Will guessed he’d taken from the pile outside the shed when he’d brought the lemonade over.

Will suddenly saw himself on the porch with the same rod, bearing down over and over again onto the rug. The image flickered momentarily, and instead of the rug, he saw Hannibal on his hands and knees, red and gasping, and then it was gone.

He shook his head and set the now-empty glass down on the ground. As he turned back to his work, he felt a flush in his cheeks that had nothing to do with the bright sun.

Will worked into the afternoon, inspecting each of the tools more closely to see which could be kept, and which would need to go into the bed of the pickup truck to be tossed as scrap. He moved the junk into a pile to the left of the door and brought the usable tools back into the shed, setting them neatly against the wall. He found himself becoming distracted as the day went on, thinking over and over on the mixed images of Hannibal wrapped tight around him in sleep, kneading bread, moaning on all fours.

He put the last scrap tool, a rusted out rake that had obviously been cheap and useless to begin with, onto the trash pile, and went to take a sip of his lemonade, only to find it empty. Hannibal was long gone from the patio by then, ticking away to some private rhythm inside the house.

Will looked over the interior of the shed one more time, satisfied now to have tamed its entropic sprawl, and closed the door.

Inside, he found Hannibal sitting in the living room. Hannibal’s hair was damp, and he was reading through his dogeared paperback of Catullus for at least the third time since they’d moved here, the newly cleaned rug at his bare feet. He didn’t look up when Will entered, although his fingers did fidget against his thigh just the smallest bit.

Will went into the kitchen to put his glass in the sink next to Hannibal’s. The two fresh loaves of bread sitting on the counter filled the room with their smell: basic, alive, human.

He passed through the living room again to climb the stairs. When he got into the already-wet shower, he turned the tap on to find the water already flowing hot. The space smelled like Hannibal, his damp towel hung on the bar on the wall. Will felt his own scent take over as he cleaned and dried himself, until the small bathroom smelled less like either of them than a combination, an amalgam of pine and soap and cotton.

\---

After dinner, they sat side by side in the den, Will browsing a field guide to Carolina insects while Hannibal continued reading the poetry book. The fire flicked an unsteady rhythm in counterbalance to Hannibal’s regular finger taps of eleven and eleven and eleven against the back of his book.

Will found himself glancing at Hannibal’s hand, watching it move. He wondered whether Hannibal even knew he was doing it, or if it was an unconscious remnant from his boarding school Latin class, tapping out syllables to keep time.

He studied the broad veined hand, and thought about how it had looked turning and pounding and working into the yeast dough this morning; and how it had looked gripping white to an axe handle and guiding it through flesh and bone. He thought about how it would feel wrapped around his throat.

He looked back down, pretending to focus intently on the regional cicada timelines, but found himself quickly losing the battle on the low arousal that had simmered in him all day. He tried to think about the overlapping rhythms of seventeen years and how many cycles they’d live through in this place, but failed miserably, his cock straining against his fly a distraction too urgent to ignore. He wondered if it were the same for Hannibal, if he spent his evenings reconstructing dead languages in a bid to dam the tide of lust that might otherwise raze him to the ground.

Will kept his eyes firmly on the page as he spoke for the first time since breakfast.

“Put your book down.”

He found himself putting on an air of firmness, a thin veil to cover his terrifying need.

Hannibal looked up and into the middle distance, eyebrows raised slightly, before resuming his reading. He slowly finished the page he was on, tapping out another five elevens, and then closed the book and laid it on the side-table, as though by his own decision. Will allowed him the indulgence of pride.

“Go upstairs and sit on the edge of the bed.”

Hannibal glanced briefly at Will, who stared resolutely at his book, but watched from the corner of his eye in a way he hoped was subtle and knew probably wasn’t. Now a full player in their game, Hannibal licked his lips, breathed in deep, exhaled hard, and put his hands on the armrests of his chair to push himself to standing. He padded to the staircase with bare feet and paused at the bottom, where Will could sense his eyes on him. Will didn’t look up.

“Clothes on. Wait for me. Don’t touch yourself.”

Will heard the soft syllable that accompanied his exhale, then his footfalls, thumping one, two, three, the creak of the fourth step, five, six, and on up to the top. 

He sat for a minute gathering his resolve, watching the jumping shapes in the fire and seeing a clash of wolves, a snake chasing its tail, a boar digging at roots and upending trees.

He put his own book down on top of Hannibal’s, closing his eyes and breathing deeply to try and steady his heartbeat. He thought about Hannibal laid out for him, ready and willing to fill his needs and his wants, and wasn’t it all the same, and wasn’t this the only reality, even if all realities were possible?

Will stood then and walked to the stairs, pausing to take his own deep breath before going up one, two, three, creak, five, all the way to the bedroom.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	11. Chapter 11

When Will came up the stairs, he found Hannibal sitting obediently on edge of the bed to his right. He felt Hannibal’s eyes on him, hawkish and shy. He ignored him and continued on to the closet, where he took off his clothes and threw them into the hamper.

He took a deep breath, clenching his eyes shut until stars floated in his vision, then waiting until they dissipated before turning around. He heard Hannibal’s breathing speed up minutely, and he finally acknowledged him, locking eyes as he crossed the room to come to a stop in front of him. He ran a hand gently through Hannibal’s hair. Hannibal, eyes soft and muddy, nuzzled into his palm, and looked up into his face, awaiting Sacrament.

“Touch me,” Will said quietly, just above a whisper. Just for the two of them here in this antechamber.

Hannibal’s nostrils flared, and he clenched his fist where it sat on his knee. Will stroked his cheek with his thumb.

“Wherever you’d like. However you’d like.”

Hannibal kept his eyes on Will’s, consulting his mind’s map for which turn to take next. There was no trodden path for this, no worn and slippery stone steps to show the way, only new and rough-hewn paving in every direction. Will saw his mouth moving silently, a hiss of air leaving him on the sibilants, and he wondered what kind of ram he had strewn on the altar of his mind for this very moment.

“I want you to look at me, touch me. Understand?”

Hannibal exhaled hard, and he finally broke Will’s gaze to travel down Will’s body. He was suddenly veiled from Will, running through causal trees in his head, endlessly complex variations for each of his potential actions.

As Will noticed him slipping deeper, further away, he repeated, more firmly, “Do you understand, Hannibal?”

He looked Hannibal in the eyes and stroked his cheek with his thumb until Hannibal looked back up at him with clear eyes, mouth parted, and gave a single nod.

“Good.”

Hannibal took a deep breath, breaking eye contact to map Will’s torso again, stopping at the marled, pearly scar stretching above his navel. He reached a hand out and ran his fingers lightly across the knotted length of it, hip to hip, gasping softly at the contact, the two-channel projection in his head flashing holy and bright.

Hannibal leaned forward then and, gripping hard at Will’s hips with both hands, pressed his mouth against it, right at the center, inhaling deeply through his nose. Will felt him suck a hard kiss to the scar, and then the push of his tongue, seeking and tasting. His cock pulsed.

“Touch yourself.” Will’s voice came out shakier than he’d intended, but it didn't change the effect of his command. Almost instantly he felt one of Hannibal’s hands leave his hip, followed by the deep vibrations of his moan against Will’s belly as he palmed himself through his clothes.

“Good. Unbutton your pants.”

Hannibal did, reaching in just enough to free his cock and wrap a hand around it, shuddering against Will’s abdomen as he worked himself slowly. He sucked unsteady kisses down the entirety of his scar, the drag of his tongue wet and lush. Will felt like pieces of himself were leaving, were being extracted; dark things rushing out, creating open spaces.

The sounds of Hannibal’s harsh, wet breathing and of his hand on his cock, rough and slick, filled the room. Will heard him speed up and let out a strained grunt, then pause, eyebrows furrowed and eyes clenched shut. He seemed to be weighing his options: come now, delicious and fast, simple and crude, or stop and see where else this might lead. He finally relaxed to give a last leisurely press of his tongue up the scar, right at the center, where it crossed the central furrow of Will’s abdomen, before pulling back to look up at Will again, slowing his breath with some effort.

Will wondered about his guarded teeth, about how far he truly wanted to go, about how much he truly wanted to taste. He wondered if Hannibal even could anymore, where Will was concerned.

Hannibal kept his gaze on Will’s eyes, now stroking himself slowly again, waiting. Will wanted to cut a piece of himself out and give it to him. Just a small piece, a coin for him to hold on his tongue. A payment for the next life.

He reached out and ran his thumb against Hannibal’s cheek and felt his soft exhale.

“Beautiful. Keep going.”

Hannibal closed his eyes and pressed into Will’s hand, whining gently. After a deep breath, he came back to himself, focused now on Will’s cock. He studied it for a moment, eyes passing down its length as he stroked up his own, learning, remembering, pressing the sight of it onto a sheet of silver. 

Still gripping Will’s hip with his free hand, he took just the head of Will’s cock into his mouth then, sucking lightly and then pulling back to tongue the slit, over and over. It was maddeningly not enough, and still far too good. Will buried his hand in Hannibal’s hair, pulling at it pointedly. Hannibal only moaned and ran his mouth further down and back up, still sucking lightly and now bumping against the tip with the back of his tongue, reveling in the precum that was beginning to flow steadily.

Will tugged at his hair again. “You don’t… _ngh_ … you don’t have to, but if… if you want me to last, you’ll need to stop doing that.”

Hannibal stilled himself almost instantly with Will’s length halfway into his mouth, tongue still pressed firmly against the underside, his hand around his own cock paused at the base.

“Christ, you’re good.”

Will ran his hand through Hannibal’s hair softly, encouraging him to continue as he would. Hannibal responded by pulling off gently, laving one last leisurely stripe up the underside and releasing him with a small pop, then looking up for further instruction.

Will got on his knees in front of him, eye-to-eye. Up close like this, he could sense the blood flowing just under Hannibal’s skin, the copper smell of it as it ruddied his cheeks, the pressure of it as it pulsed through him. He reached for Hannibal’s free hand. Under Will’s soft touch, Hannibal slowly unwound himself, just enough for Will to entwine their fingers.

Will felt his heartbeat every place they touched, fast and uncontrolled. He leaned forward and kissed him softly on the mouth, then pulled back and rested their foreheads together, their breathing shaky and uncoordinated.

Will closed his eyes and kissed him again, squeezing Hannibal’s hand, and he felt Hannibal respond by seeking entrance with his tongue. They kissed lazily, joined heartbeats slowing down and tongues sliding together, and Will soon felt Hannibal’s other hand clasp gently at his face. He heard himself let out a small moan, and Hannibal echoed it, pulling back at last to catch his breath. When his breathing had evened out a little, he looked straight into Will’s eyes, grasping hard at the hand in his and spoke softly, but clearly:

“Do you want to fuck me, Will?”

_Fuck._

Will heard a low groan escape his own mouth and felt the hair stand up on the back of his neck. The wave that roared through him was inhuman, bestial.

So this is where they were.

“In the drawer.” Hannibal, steady and sober now, gestured minutely with his head in the direction of his bedside table.

Will nodded, panting, and broke their contact to walk the few steps to Hannibal’s bedside drawer, finding inside a little plastic bottle of lube. He raised an eyebrow and waved it in Hannibal’s direction.

“How long have you had this?”

Hannibal just looked back at him, nonplussed. Will came back to stand in front of him, throwing the lube onto the bed next to where he sat.

“Is this what you want, Hannibal?”

Hannibal looked up at him, pupils suddenly black enough for Will to see the altar reflected beyond. His nostrils flared and he breathed out, hard.

“I need you to say it, Hannibal.”

Hannibal swallowed, and Will heard the click of his tongue as he unstuck it from the roof of his mouth. His mouth barely moved, his pointed teeth glinting in the gap of his lips around his whispered, “Yes.”

Will nodded, pushing Hannibal’s hair back from his forehead.

“Clothes off. Scoot back onto the bed, against the headboard.”

Hannibal closed his eyes for a second before he stood, pulling off his sweater and gracefully stepping the rest of the way out of his pants, leaving them all puddled on the floor. He climbed onto the bed, laying on his back with his knees up, his feet planted in front of him. He waited and watched, a feast of skin and scar and velvet, and Will couldn’t keep from stroking himself under his gaze, just once, twice.

“I need you to communicate with me if we’re going to do this,” Will said, letting go of his cock and crawling onto the bed to kneel in front of Hannibal as he spoke.

Hannibal just stared back, his calm, controlled veneer at odds with his swollen length, red and anxious where it lay against his belly.

“What do you like? Where would you like to start?” Will asked softly.

“Anything you ask me to – ” Hannibal started, dropping off when Will raised a stern eyebrow.

“Hannibal. Honesty, please. What would feel good for you, right now?”

Hannibal’s had formed into a fist next to him. He thought for a second, holding eye contact with Will. Will saw things flash through his eyes: soft hands and leather straps and kitchen knives. Kisses and semen and the pink slide of blood down a shower drain.

“The truth? Nothing would be unpleasurable where you’re concerned.”

“Okay. I know you too well not to believe that you believe that.” Will gave him a small smile. “How about this: you tell me when this isn’t working, deal?”

Hannibal gave him a look that bordered on patronizing, but he grunted in acquiescence.

“Good. Glad that’s settled. Now ride your fingers, I want to see.”

The lube was still sitting by the edge of the bed where Hannibal had been, and Will reached over to it. He held it out, and Hannibal took it from him, their fingers glancing briefly.

Hannibal’s hand shook just the slightest bit as he opened the bottle and poured a generous amount of lube onto his own fingers. Reaching down and around his leg, he steadied himself to lightly circle his hole, letting out a soft gasp at the contact.

“Wait.”

Hannibal stopped immediately, arm straining with the effort to keep still.

“On your knees, facing the headboard.”

The command saw Hannibal’s breath falter and they locked eyes for a long moment before he gathered himself to obey, rolling to his front and presenting his backside to Will as he rose onto his knees with legs spread. Beautiful.

“Go ahead.”

Hannibal gripped the headboard with his left hand, reaching his slicked right hand behind himself. After a brief minute of circling, he began to work his first finger in, flexing his thighs to fuck down on it, and then back up. It was gorgeous, the power in his body, the way he restrained and released it. The ripples in his back as he sank down and tensed up around his finger, and again as he rose and supported himself. The masses of scar tissue passing over his muscles. The sweet, wet sound of it, labored exhales accompanying the slick rhythm of his fingers, two of them now.

Will couldn’t keep still and watch any longer, he had to come up behind and grip him by the hips, feel the motion of them for himself. A low whine escaped Hannibal’s throat at Will’s warm hands on him, and he fucked down harder onto his hand.

Will leaned forward to whisper in his ear, “Can you take three for me?”

Hannibal groaned and grasped the headboard harder, knuckles white, and, without looking, Will could tell the second he’d spread himself wider by the low, wet cry he gave.

“Good.”

Will kissed him softly at the left join of his neck, moving his hands down to squeeze and knead at Hannibal’s ass, fingers brushing against the heel of Hannibal’s hand as he worked in and out.

“Can you take more?”

Hannibal paused, fingers all the way inside, and turned his head to look at Will over his shoulder. His mouth was hanging open, breath coming in quick, labored pants; his eyes desperate and determined. He nodded shortly, just once. Will gave his ass a final squeeze and moved back.

Will moved around so that he was lying on his back to Hannibal’s side, facing him. “Come here.”

Hannibal closed his eyes, just for a moment, and his mouth moved around some silent, private syllable. After a deep breath, he released the headboard and shifted his leg over and back so that he was sitting on Will’s thighs, knees pressed into Will’s hips, hands resting on Will’s flanks.

Hannibal was heavier and denser than Will would have assumed in their past life, a fact he’d learned dragging his unconscious body up the shore after the cliff. Now, very much alive, his weight pressed into Will’s thighs, hot and humid, as he stared down at Will, silver hair hanging in his eyes, swollen red lips parted around his quick, hard breaths.

“Good. Breathe.” Will reached his left hand to squeeze gently at Hannibal’s thigh. “Whenever you’re ready.”

Hannibal gave an inscrutable nod, rose up on his knees, and, looking down at Will’s cock, reached to steady it by the base. And then, all in one motion, he lined himself up and sunk down.

It was too much too fast, it was always going to be too fast, and Will’s vision went white with it. It felt like falling into the sea again, hitting the surface like some great sheet of polished marble, and he was sure his skin would be purple and bruised if he could see the expanse of it.

Hannibal didn't seem to be faring much better, his mouth frozen open around a soundless shout, leaned over now, leaden arms supporting the weight of his upper body at two concentrated points on Will’s chest. He was clenching compulsively around Will, making sparks fly across Will’s field of vision. The pressure was unrelenting and hot, and then Hannibal rose up and bore down on him again, hard, and nothing could have prepared him for this.

He heard a strangled sound escape his throat as he desperately tried to find a place to hold on, settling his hands on Hannibal’s hips as they forcefully rocked up and down.

The noises coming from Hannibal were guttural, animal, every clenching downstroke releasing a flood of hard consonants from his mouth. His eyes were open, but glazed. He seemed on the threshold of some other place, less in this world than another.

Will mustered all the force he could, given the immense pleasure rolling through him, to get his attention. “Hannibal.” 

He kept going as though he hadn’t heard Will, fucking down hard with a grunt, eyes unfocused, once, and again, and again.

Will squeezed hard at his ass, hard enough to be painful. “ _Hannibal_.” 

That got his attention, and he came back from wherever he’d gone, eyes helplessly connecting with Will’s. He saw something there that calmed him a little, his rhythm settling into something much more sustainable. The feeling of it went from high and urgent to low and steady, and they watched each other, seeing a complete picture between them, an image of their own creation. It went on like that for a while, their pleasure a level hum joining their veins.

Through all of it, Hannibal was hot and dense, boxing Will in and taking over his senses. There wasn’t anything that wasn’t Hannibal, not in this bed, not in this room, not in this house. He was the only thing that existed. The pressure of his weight on Will’s thighs and chest was grounding and safe, and Will found solid earth in his grip on Hannibal’s hips, ass, back, belly, chest: all of him warm and real and thick and here.

Eventually, Hannibal hit a breaking point and had to speed up and break the spell, shutting his eyes as he ramped up his thrusts. Will looked him over, finding him ruddy and sweating, intensely human. He saw Hannibal’s cock hanging heavy between them, lovely and curved and red. Will was surprised at how thick it was, and how wet; and how much he suddenly wanted to put his hand around it. He did. Hannibal shouted, eyes clenching shut tighter as he sped up to ride Will even harder.

“Eyes open. Watch me.”

Hannibal obeyed, shaken and shaking, his gaze molten iron.

“Good, there you go.”

Will tightened his hand and let Hannibal fuck into it as he worked himself on Will’s cock. Their pleasure had passed its plateau, and was climbing rapidly now, becoming almost unbearable.

As he approached orgasm, Will’s mind flickered.

He thought about how it would feel to keep a knife under the pillow, and whether he'd ever have the urge to use it like this. What it would be like to cut into Hannibal now, at the height of pleasure; how the knife would slide in smoothly across the soft plane of his belly, and how the blood would rush out warm over his own torso; how far he could reach his hand in and whether he could find the kidneys on the other side, smooth and fist-sized. He wondered if he'd remove them and save them, or whether he'd be able to resist eating them immediately, hot and raw.

Instead he just gripped Hannibal’s cock harder, watching his face screw up and his rhythm falter. A few more quick, uneven thrusts, and Hannibal was jerking in his hand and squeezing hard around Will’s cock with a loud, strangled cry, his cum splashing up Will’s belly and chest. The clenching waves of his orgasm were too much, and they brought Will to a sharp and sudden climax that covered him in a bright flash of light, then submerged him in a deep, sustained, rippling warmth. 

He was still riding the last waves of it when he felt a sudden, suffocating weight on his chest. Hannibal’s arms had given out, and he was now lying on top of him, heavy and warm, belly expanding into Will’s own with each breath, pressing them closer together. Will reached a hand up to stroke it gently through his hair. Stirred by the contact, Hannibal turned his head to look at Will from where he lay on his chest, obviously exhausted, but curious and calm. An old knowledge passed between them, and Hannibal seemed satisfied by it, eyes settling.

At some point, Hannibal had bitten his own lip hard enough to draw blood, and Will leaned up and kissed it off, the copper filling his mouth like coins. Hannibal’s eyelids fluttered closed, and Will held his head close to kiss them, the obolic taste of blood still on his tongue. He wondered if he'd ever be rid of it.

They dozed like that, liquid, until eventually Hannibal moved to the side of his own accord, gripping around Will’s torso, letting Will’s heartbeat lull him into a deeper sleep. 

Will continued to run his fingers gently along Hannibal’s scalp until he, too, fell asleep, mind quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to sincerely apologize for how long this has taken. I've had most of it written for months, but - as happens - life, mental health stuff, vacation, and Big Bang have all consumed me lately. I do love this story though, and I'm very much hoping to get back on a regular posting schedule with it. Thanks for continuing to read <3
> 
> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com)


	12. Chapter 12

On Friday, Will hopped into the driver’s seat of their truck. It was late morning already, and the air was dense and foggy. Rain later, maybe. It could make the drive difficult, but then again, it could keep them both awake for it.

The truck was perfect, a faded red Chevrolet Silverado from 1992 that reminded Will of the series of used pickups his father had bought when he was a child: all of them on their last legs, and all of them dead within a year, rusted out in the Mississippi humidity. Will was optimistic that he could keep this one around a little longer.

When Will and Hannibal had come to Carolina by sea from Maryland months ago, they’d dumped their boat in the reeds of the Cape Fear River, miles upstream from the ocean. A quick walk had found them in the one-stoplight town of East Arcadia, where they’d seen the truck in the yard at the town’s only gas station. There was a handwritten sign in the window on neon green cardstock reading: $1000 O.B.O., USUALLY STARTS, NO A/C. Will had negotiated them down to $850 ( _“I know we can afford it, but it would be weird if we didn’t haggle, Hannibal”_ ), and paid for it with an envelope of Hannibal’s cash.

Indeed, the truck did _usually_ start, though it took a few rumbling seconds for the ignition to spark. And though the A/C was truly out to pasture, they’d found themselves with the bonus of a working tape deck and AM/FM radio, which Will would switch back and forth between the afternoon blues show on WNCW and a Tom Waits cassette he’d found in the glove box. Hannibal never tried to touch the thing, and never said a word about it. 

Will juiced the engine to get it to turn over, waiting for Hannibal to finish cleaning up their late breakfast in the kitchen and come join him.

The several days since they’d fucked, really truly fucked, had been overpoweringly intimate and quiet. They were more one now than ever, though they still lived in two separate bodies out of some necessity of nature that was out of their control.

Through all of Wednesday, Hannibal had been on top of Will like a dog, sniffing at him, walking up behind to hold him close whenever he got the chance. Will had let him, just as he had let him have Will’s cock in his mouth that night. When he came, he asked Hannibal to hold onto his mouthful of cum while Will jacked him off afterwards. It was filthy, and Hannibal was clearly ecstatic about it, in his quiet way.

Will had woken up Thursday to find Hannibal mostly underneath him, in a position that seemed suffocating at best. When he tried to get up, Hannibal had pulled him back down, sighing contentedly at the firm weight on his chest and face. After they’d dozed through the morning and then finally gotten out of bed around noon, Will had thought about disciplining him for being defiant, but decided to let it lie. After all, it wasn’t as if he hadn’t enjoyed it, warm and awkward as it was.

Now, as he sat letting the engine hum and warm up, Hannibal clicked open the door and climbed gracefully into the passenger seat, three days stubble on his face and a navy knit beanie on his head.

They’d cultivated a look for themselves in town, casual and unremarkable. Hannibal would allow himself to stoop to an incredibly casual level of grooming, while Will would purposefully let his beard grow longer until it covered the jagged white scar on his cheek. You could still see the shining, hairless flash of skin if you were looking for it, but most people didn’t notice a thing. Low over the scar on his forehead, Will wore a tan camouflage baseball cap with the University of North Carolina Tarheels logo on it. He’d bought it exactly for this purpose when they first came here, at a gas station outside Fayetteville on their drive from the river.

They so rarely left their property, were so used to wearing their own skins and being seen with clear eyes, that trips into town were an occasion and an ordeal; an exercise of persona. Will had never been fond of appearing other than himself. Keeping up the ruse was exhausting for him, on top of the struggle of maintaining polite conversation.

It was easier, he knew, for Hannibal, for whom persona was almost a default: the real Hannibal existed only at the cabin, and he seemed mostly okay with leaving his real self there, with the dusty old green drapes and knotty pine wood panelling. Will could never understand how he did it.

The ground rules for being in town were as follows: 1. Park in a discreet area, 2. Keep conversation to a minimum, 3. Never enter a shop at the same time, and 4. Never acknowledge each other outside of the truck. The less public contact they had with each other, the better. Not only were they two fugitives whose faces had spent weeks on the news, but they were also two grown men living together ( _two grown men living together and exploring a borderline BDSM relationship_ , an unhelpful area of Will’s lizard brain whispered at him). In this part of the world, cohabitation was the kind of thing that generated whispers, at the very least. If it weren’t for Hannibal’s accent, they could have tried to pass as brothers, but they knew that was a long shot. War buddies, perhaps.

As it was, they tried to minimize the fact that they were traveling together at all, hoping no one would notice. And people didn’t, really. People saw what they wanted to see, what was in front of their face, and they didn’t think too hard about too much else. It was a fact of human nature that had obviously worked in Hannibal’s favor for going on fifty years, and it didn’t show any signs of letting them down in Carolina.

In public, they both wore roughened work pants, Carhartt jackets, and old, pilled flannels. This, frankly, wasn’t too far from Will’s normal outfit around the house, but Hannibal kept a few sets of town clothes in a chest at the bottom of the closet. When they’d moved here, he’d run them through the wash several times with rock salt to age them and create an illusion of being lived-in. It was impressive, the effort he went through, and the disguise skills he was obviously versed in.

Will glanced at him where he sat staring out the passenger window. He wondered how early he’d begun preparing to be a fugitive: at Hopkins? Earlier, in Florence? Vilnius?

He had a flash of a teenage boy then, in a factory yard, axle grease smeared around his neck, clothes filthy and worn, joining the lunch line for the workmen. Walking right off the yard after he received his bread and washing his neck in a nearby stream. Reaching into a bag hidden behind the knot of a tree and pulling out a clean, well-kept shirt and trousers, changing clothes before eating his lunch with measured, methodical bites. Sliding a switchblade into the waist of his pants before walking to the next town to do it again the next day. Surviving.

Will understood that Hannibal had been someone else for longer than he’d been himself. He wondered if Hannibal was even capable of being himself, if Hannibal believed there was a Himself left inside. There was, though, and Will knew him well. Will probably knew him, this real Hannibal, better than Hannibal did. And he was the one who would win out, Hannibal Himself, over all those other Hannibals, Will would make sure of it.

* * *

The town was small: a main drag of about 5 blocks, mostly made up of sporting goods stores for the rafters and hikers who used the area as a base camp. Towards the edges of the town center, the shops, banks, and diners petered off into gas stations, feed stores, the high school football field, scattered houses.

It was predictable, in that way small towns are. Will had had a mental map of the layout of it before they’d even driven through the first time. When you’ve lived around the country as much as Will had, you can predict, with stunning accuracy, exactly what you’ll find in every small town, where you’ll find it, who you’ll find there, and who they’re cheating on.

Will parked the truck at a coin-op meter a block north of the drag: it was three blocks west to the hardware store, and two east to the grocery store. As usual, they’d split up to run their separate errands, Hannibal in charge of food in all its forms, Will in charge of miscellany: home repair, housewares, clothing, and the like.

He gave himself the longer walk on purpose, still wary of putting Hannibal through too much physical strain after his abdominal injury. The sideways glare he received from the passenger seat told him Hannibal saw his motives and didn’t quite appreciate being babied. 

Will ignored him and read the green letters of the old clock on the dash.

“Let's see, it's one now, so be back at the truck by two.”

He lingered, staring at the steering wheel and waiting for Hannibal to confirm or protest, but the other man was silent. After a minute, he felt thick, blunt fingers run gently over the back of his hand where it lay on his thigh. He turned his palm over and let Hannibal hold it. Hannibal was light in his touch, precise. Their fingers intertwined, and Will felt like their skin was paper-thin, like they could melt into a single entity.

When looked over at Hannibal, he was met with eyes that were soft and lost. Hannibal, brow smooth, stared at Will like he was trying to memorize every detail and nook of his face. He did this sort of thing a lot, but Will knew that he was making the effort now in case something happened. In case one of them didn’t make it back. Or both of them.

The silence between them stretched like tides. Will looked at Hannibal’s mouth and saw his bottom lip disappear under his angled teeth. He lingered there, longer than was probably polite, licking his own bottom lip unconsciously, then glanced away abruptly as though waking from a trance.

“Be back by two,” he said again, then popped open the driver’s side door and left Hannibal in the cab.

* * *

After dropping a handful of change into the parking meter, Will headed for the hardware store, turning his mind to the shopping list in his head in an effort to stop thinking about the lost boy he’d left in the truck behind him. In an effort to stop thinking about the risks they faced every time they did this: exposure, capture, separation. In an effort to stop thinking about how that was the only thing that made Hannibal afraid, that had ever made Hannibal afraid. Losing him. Being separated.

_A new rake, one that he could use to clean and to till. Scrap 2 x 4’s to build out storage cubbies for the shed. A power drill, one of the good, high-end ones. New knobs for the bathroom vanity sink. Assorted nails, bolts, and screws. Rope, and a winch for the truck._

He passed a dollar store, a dive bar, and a bank on the first block. The second block was taken up by a long, railcar-style diner, and when he glanced in the window, he saw shiny red vinyl seats and those little brown coffee mugs at every booth. A television was on, playing highlights from last night’s basketball game, and he stayed long enough to read the closed captioning and get the gist of who won and how. People here _knew_ these things.

After a minute, curiosity sated, he walked on, reaching the glass door of the hardware store on the next block. He’d been here a couple of times, for odds and ends. It was the comforting type of mom-and-pop hardware shop, the type with a little bell at the entrance, and little brown paper bags for nails and screws.

The bell dinged as he opened the door and walked in, passing the key duplication counter and the rotating rack of carpentry magazines.

An older man sat behind the register, idly flipping through the new issue of _Field & Stream_. He looked up at the noise, giving Will a small tilt of the head, before returning to his magazine. Nothing remarkable here, nothing remarkable about a thickly bearded white man in work clothes. Just another regular customer.

No matter how many times this happened, how many times Will was taken for a local, he still breathed out a hard sigh of relief whenever the bright light of a stranger’s gaze passed him by. It was a test he’d had to pass over and over in this new life, a test that the stranger never even knew they were proctoring. And that’s why Will always passed. Say to someone: “What’s odd about that man who just walked in?” and they’ll look twice, find the oddity, recognize the face they’d seen on TV. Don’t say anything, and they won’t notice anything. _Piece of cake._

He read the signs over each aisle to figure out where he was going, then made his way to the power tools area, taking his time looking over all the drills. He wasn’t going to get the most expensive one _just_ because Hannibal was paying. He wanted to make sure he was getting the best one, one with a smooth gear switch and impact driving capabilities. If it _happened_ to be the most expensive one, well, that’s how it was.

In the end he wound up with two: a regular one and a right-angle one, both top of the line. He’d never had a right-angle drill before; it had always seemed unnecessary, luxurious. Hannibal wouldn’t even notice.

It had already been half an hour by the time he even started on the lawn equipment. He took his time choosing the things he needed, and mentally filing others to his wish list for next time. He believed in always having a “next time,” knowing it was what made getting out of bed worth it some days. Live long enough and you’ll get to go to the hardware store next week. Live long enough and you’ll get to see exactly where the rabbit hole goes. He was sure this was how Hannibal felt about half-finished drawings, or dogeared recipes, or therapy sessions when the clock hit 6:55. Next time.

The neighboring aisle held ropes and fasteners, and he quickly spotted and grabbed the type he knew he’d need for the truck, in case he had to pull it out of mud or tow it. On his way to the next aisle, he passed a section of colorful, nylon ropes, and stopped to run his hand down them. They were smooth and soft, and the texture was delicious: ridged and delicate. When he tugged on one, it had just a little give.

Without his permission, the thought of pale, scarred skin crossed over with a length of the red rope ran through his brain. He pulled his hand back, filing the thought away for when he was ready to revisit it. Next time.

As he snaked his way into the next aisle to browse for screws and bolts, he heard the bell ding above the front door. He glanced in that direction, noticing the old schoolhouse-style clock at the front of the store, its hands already spelling out the narrow angle of 2:05. _Shit._

Knowing he was running late, he was quick about this last section, but careful, choosing what he’d need to do the little repairs and projects he’d planned around the property. When he was done making his selections, he folded over the top of the little brown paper bag, enjoying the sound of the little bits of metal clinking together at the bottom. He took the little ballpoint pen that was taped to the rack with a piece of string, and wrote the cost and amount of everything he’d chosen onto the side of the bag.

On his way out of the aisle, he glanced to make sure the shopkeeper wasn’t looking, then indulged in sticking his hand into the bin of the tiniest metal nuts to feel them avalanche around his fingers, just for a second. He felt childish, but it was a bright, happy sensation, one that reminded him again of trips like this with his father.

He pulled his hand out and left the aisle, stopping abruptly in his tracks when he saw a sharp, grey-stubbled face under a navy knit cap. Hannibal was standing by the exit, browsing the magazines, making a good show of being fascinated by mortise and tenon joints. 

_God fucking dammit._

Will quickly righted himself, sparing a glance at the cashier behind the counter, but the old man’s attention was far afield, nose still stuck in his magazine. He may not have noticed Hannibal walk in, even with the bell. If he had, he’d find another unremarkable ( _entirely remarkable_ ) local with a carpentry hobby.

When Will set his basket down, the cashier glanced at him and his load of tools over his glasses before putting the magazine down.

“Big project, son?” he asked conversationally.

“Tax return just came in. I’ve been eyeing some of these toys for the house.” Will offered. He fought every nerve in his body that wanted him to turn around and keep an eye on Hannibal. _You don’t know him. You’ve never met. He’s just another customer here._

The man chuckled and started to ring him up.

“‘Heels fan, huh? How ‘bout that Duke game last night?” He gestured to Will’s hat, then began tapping numbers into an old cash machine, the kind that spit out a little white receipt as he went.

_You don’t know him._

Will rolled back his brain to what he’d seen on the headline of today’s newspaper, what he’d read on the TV captions at the diner. “Can’t believe Meeks choked like that. He’d better get it back before the series is out or we’re done.”

The shopkeeper shook his head. “Damn shame, too. This was going to be Carolina’s year.”

_You’ve never met._

“Still might could be.” Will kept his tone friendly and light. It was a massive effort.

The older man hmm’d, not entirely agreeing, but at least he was done with the conversation.

“That’ll be $754.89.”

Ouch.

He heard Hannibal turn the page in his magazine, and Will imagined the feeling of his breath against the back of his neck in bed this morning.

_He’s just another customer here._

Will pulled out his wallet, counting fifteen fifties onto the counter in three piles of five. 

One, two, three, four, five.

_You don’t know him._

One, two, three, four, five.

_You’ve never met._

One, two, three, four, five.

_He’s just another customer here._

He searched for a minute in his wallet to find some ones or fives, but only found a twenty. He shrugged his shoulder slightly in apology and handed it over with a sweaty palm.

The man didn’t seem to notice the homeostatic war going on inside Will. He took out a white marker and ran it across the fronts of all the fifties, satisfied when the color didn’t change. He then lifted the cash drawer tray and slipped them underneath it in a messy pile, returning the tray afterwards to put away the twenty and count out a ten, a five, a dime, and a penny into Will’s hand.

Will dropped his change in the leave-a-penny dish, inclined his head slightly to the man in thanks, and headed for the exit with his bags.

He passed by Hannibal, who was deep into an article about wood varnish. He was close enough for Will to feel his warmth through his coat. They didn’t acknowledge each other at all.

He walked the 3 blocks to the truck like the devil was on his heels, forcing himself to slow down when he realized he was panting. When he finally got to the truck, he leaned against the tailgate and took a few deep breaths, forcing his heart rate down, his adrenaline away. He then calmly put his new tools and supplies in the bed, bungeeing them in, and got in the driver’s seat and waited. In the rear-view mirror, he noticed that Hannibal had already filled the back seat with their groceries.

A few minutes later, Hannibal turned the corner and got in the passenger’s seat. He had a brown bag containing a couple of magazines on home renovation and gardening techniques.

“It would have been odder if I’d left without buying anything,” Hannibal said casually, opening one up on his knees and looking over the table of contents.

Will stared at him for a long minute while he focused on the magazine, then hmm’d in agreement, flipped on the radio, and started the truck. Leon Russell’s “Tightrope” drowned out the quiet sound of Hannibal’s breathing.

He looked over again at Hannibal after they’d left town, seeing that he’d chosen an article on deck repair and was reading it as raptly as if it were Virgil. He let him read. 

He thought about what to do.

The white lines down the center of the road passed him steadily, _foom foom foom_. The trees, too, were evenly spaced, a whoosh of tall and brown on either side of them. Occasionally they’d pass a place where the rock slope had been cut to allow the highway to pass, cylindrical drill holes running down the too-flat face of it. Man Was Here.

He saw a dead rabbit on the side of the road, just laying there flat. He imagined how the light breeze created by their passing truck would ruffle its fur. Things died sometimes, with no one to see or know.

The radio DJ switched tracks to Robert Johnson’s old recording of “Cross Road Blues.” Next to him, Hannibal tapped his finger against the back of the magazine in perfect 8-bar time. Will, not for the first time, wondered whether Hannibal was even aware he was doing it.

He couldn’t let this lie. It was too much, too egregious. Too dangerous, for both of them.

After they’d crossed the little wooden truss bridge over the creek that marked the halfway point to the cabin, he switched off the radio, which had just changed to a commercial for a local car dealership.

“Hannibal.”

Hannibal looked up and straight ahead at the trees through the windshield, his concentration broken. His eyebrows were tilted up in question.

“What did I tell you, earlier?”

“You said it looked like it might rain. It’s fortunate for our drive uphill that it hasn’t.” He spoke steadily, almost rehearsed. It wasn’t lost on Will that Hannibal hadn’t made eye contact since he’d arrived at the truck.

“No, after that,” Will pressed. Everything in him wanted to leave it alone. He couldn’t.

“You asked if I’d buy half & half? I got a quart. It won’t go bad quickly.”

“Well, yes… I did want that. Thank you.” The ghost of a smug smile played just at the edge of Hannibal’s mouth when Will glanced over. He strengthened his resolve. “But. I told you to be at the truck at two. Did I say anything about coming to find me?”

Hannibal’s expression flattened, became somehow more passive and more anxious at the same time. _Oh. That._

“Do you know the rules about being in town?” He kept his eyes on the road, sparing Hannibal the occasional glance. The path was fairly straight here, but still foggy enough to require attention. Will was grateful for the excuse.

“Yes.”

“Then why did you disregard them? I put those rules in place for a reason, Hannibal. I put those rules in place for your safety. For our safety.”

“I… you were late.” Hannibal finally looked at him then, on the cusp of some ledge. Holding on.

“And I told you to be at the truck at two. I didn’t say anything about when I’d be at the truck.” Will kept his face as blank as he could. This wasn’t retribution, nor was it an emotional reaction; it was discipline.

“No, you didn’t.”

“You disobeyed me, Hannibal. I understand why, and I’m sympathetic to it. I worry about you every single time we leave the house. But you still disobeyed me.”

Hannibal looked away and pulled his lower lip into his mouth again, worrying it with his teeth. When Will glanced over, Hannibal looked like he wanted to cry. He looked like he was desperately trying _not_ to look like he wanted to cry. Will wasn’t sure which half of that was put on, and which half was genuine.

“What are we going to do about that?”

Hannibal met his eyes.

“Do you think you deserve to be punished?”

“If you think I do, then yes.” He sounded impossibly small. It was brave of him to show it.

“No, what do _you_ think?”

“Yes. I do.” There was nothing there but honesty, a clear look through his dark pupils at Hannibal Himself.

“I don’t. You don’t deserve to be punished, Hannibal.”

Hannibal looked down at his own lap, where his hand was working into a nervous fist over and over. Will reached over and covered it with his own hand, calming him.

“But you _do_ deserve to be _disciplined_.”

Hannibal turned his hand over and took Will’s in it. He squeezed it lightly.

“Yes, Sir.”

_Oh._

Will felt a throb run through his cock.

He squeezed Hannibal’s hand back, then let go and returned his own to the steering wheel, mouth dry.

“We’ll deal with this when we get home. Read your magazine, Hannibal.”

Hannibal did, and neither of them said a thing for the rest of the drive home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading and for being patient <3
> 
>  
> 
> [strangestorys.tumblr.com](http://strangestorys.tumblr.com)
> 
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> 
> [@strange_storys](http://twitter.com/strange_storys)


	13. Chapter 13

_Holy forgiveness! mercy! charity! faith! Holy! Ours! bodies! suffering! Magnanimity!_  
_Holy the supernatural extra brilliant intelligent kindness of the soul!_  
_-Allen Ginsberg_

* * *

The rest of the drive home was quiet and dense with energy. Will left the radio off, and they soaked in each other’s anticipation. Hannibal spent the whole time staring at the carpentry magazine in his lap, never once turning the page from an interview with Bob Vila, of which Will was positive he hadn’t read a word.

Finally, after they passed the dog-head boulder that marked their property line, Will pulled onto the gravel driveway leading back to the shed, rocks crunching under the truck’s tires in an extended crackling groan that filled the silence.

As the cabin came into view, Hannibal stopped pretending to read, closed his magazine, and slipped it back into the brown paper bag with the others. Nothing in his eyes changed.

Will came to a stop and turned off the ignition, the dusty gravel noise and the rumbling vibration from under the hood tapering off into a clean, stretching silence. The noises here were familiar again: a slight breeze rustling the damp tree leaves, water dripping down the eaves of the shed from the earlier rain, the high, extended call of a black-throated warbler. They were home.

Hannibal put his hand on the door pull, fingers curled around it lightly, and paused, eyes on the glove box. It was an act, the way he would wait for instruction like this, but it didn’t mean Will enjoyed it any less for its insincerity. It was the sort of elegant facade that kept relationships and cities going.

“Go inside. Take your shoes and coat off at the door. Once you’re upstairs, put your shirt and socks in the hamper. Take a piss if you need to. Kneel in front of the bed, facing the window, hands behind your back. Wait for me.”

Hannibal looked up and eyed him passively, then gave a short nod and opened the door the rest of the way.

“And Hannibal?”

Hannibal paused.

“If you move, I’ll know.”

Will watched as a small hint of a smile flickered across Hannibal’s eyes, just before he stepped down from the cab and walked away towards the house.

Will stayed there for a second, holding onto the steering wheel at ten and two, head rested back against the seat, breathing slowly a few times. He stretched his fingers, took the keys out of the ignition, and stepped out of the truck. He pulled the driver’s seat forward to reach the groceries in the back seat, taking them out and putting them on the ground. He then went to undo the bungee cords holding the tools into the bed.

Opening the little latch on the shed door, he brought everything from the truck bed to rest in a neat row on the workbench inside. When he was finished, he shut it all inside and re-latched the door. Tomorrow he’d put everything away, give each tool a new home.

Turning back towards the truck, he took a moment to look at the little cabin, surrounded by their neatly-kept lawn, and beyond that, ringed by wild and dense wood. Hannibal had turned the lights on in the foyer and bedroom, and there was a warm glow coming from it in the late afternoon sun. It was safe there, in their den. It was home. He felt, here, finally, like his chest could expand enough; like he could get enough air into his lungs to be satisfied.

Breathing out, he bent his knees to pick up the grocery bags, wincing at how heavy they were. He thought about Hannibal lugging these by himself from the grocery store, and immediately stopped that train of thought. Hannibal didn’t need Will’s pity. He was a grown man who knew his limits, even if he was inclined to push them a little too often.

He carried the bags across the lawn and walked into the house, pausing just inside the door to notice Hannibal’s boots sitting neatly next to the little wooden hope chest, his coat draped across the top of it. _Good._ His arousal, simmering since the drive home, inched up.

When he got to the kitchen, he placed the bags on the counter, then leaned on it and breathed deeply for a minute. He could do this. This was what Hannibal wanted. It was what Hannibal _needed_. 

His hands were trembling just the littlest bit. Without his permission, his body went to the cabinet and pulled down a highball glass, put a single piece of ice in it, and poured a finger of whiskey. He downed it in three short sips, letting it burn his tongue and throat. It felt good.

He eyed the bottle again.

_No._

Hannibal deserved for him to be present for this. He owed it to both of them to make this a consensual, smooth experience. Another finger of whiskey had no place in that.

Just the one, though, had him feeling smoother and more alert. Thinking about Hannibal upstairs, steeping in anticipation, he took his time. _Let him._

He put the groceries away: greens in the crisper, milk in the door, eggs stacked to the right of the second shelf. Flour and rice in their canisters in the pantry. Potatoes and onions and meat all down to the basement, where they’d rest in dry, cool closets and freezers.

Everything in its place. This, too, felt good. Nourishment, order. It was a good life they had here.

He folded the grocery bags and put them under the sink. He then went to the front door again, taking off his boots and coat and placing them neatly next to Hannibal’s.

The coats, both of them together, smelled rain-damp, like moss. He breathed it in, green and alive. This was Right. They would be okay. He would make sure they were okay.

He walked up the stairs to the loft, closing his eyes and steadying his nerves before banking the three half-turn steps into the bedroom.

His vision was immediately filled with the sight of Hannibal’s shirtless back where he knelt facing the front window. His arms were held at a tight obtuse angle, hands cradled one in the other at the small of his bare back. His head was bowed, and Will imagined the fringe of hair hanging in his eyes.

The way his shoulders sloped down into a landscape of ridged and powerful muscle was so intensely elegant, almost too perfect. Will’s breath caught in his throat.  
Hannibal’s toes curled just minutely when he heard Will enter.

Will ignored him. He went to take his own socks off and put them in the hamper, then rolled the sleeves of his flannel up neatly, just above the elbow. As he worked, he watched from behind as Hannibal’s rib cage expanded with a deep breath, then deflated slowly as he grounded himself. Once, twice, three times. His eyes must surely be closed.

Will turned back into the closet, rummaging at his end until he found what he was looking for. He heard steady, quiet breaths from the next room, but no other noise.

When he came back, Hannibal looked exactly as he'd left him. He trusted that he'd been in that same position for upwards of fifteen minutes now, as long as it had taken Will to unpack the car and groceries.

He knelt down behind Hannibal, just in his blind spot. Right in front of him, he placed a folded white bath towel. Next to him, he placed the two leather belts he'd found in the closet, letting their metal buckles clank together audibly.

He gestured at the towel. “Up.”

Hannibal took the hint, moving his knees onto the soft, thick terrycloth.

“Good boy.”

A quick breath in then, disrupting his rhythm. That wasn’t an act. Will felt a thrill pass through him at the knowledge.

“Can you keep your eyes straight ahead, or will I need to blindfold you?”

Hannibal didn't say anything, but lifted his head to stare straight out the window at the leaves moving just past the glass. Their mirrored reflections made brief eye contact in the window glass, and Hannibal averted his glance just as quickly as he’d found it.

“Good. You know why we’re here.”

The reflection of Hannibal’s nostrils flared, just the smallest bit.

“Tell me. Tell me why we’re here, Hannibal.”

Hannibal glanced over and made eye contact again with Will’s shadow in the glass, mouth hanging open a fraction.

“Nope. Eyes ahead. Tell me. The longer I wait to hear it, the harder this is going to be.”

Hannibal snapped his eyes back to the tree. A long, stretching moment passed, and then finally, he offered, “I was disobedient.” A small voice, but steady, a pebble thrown into a pond. 

“Louder.”

A twitch passed through Hannibal’s right tricep, but his voice rang out clear and loud this time, a glass bell in the silence. “I was disobedient.”

“Yes, you were. And do you understand why I created the rules you’ve so brazenly disobeyed?”

“Yes, Sir.”

“Why did I create them?”

“For our safety.”

“Yes. I know you understand that. And I know you didn’t mean any harm, did you?”

“No, Sir.”

“Good. Your intentions are important, they matter. But it’s your actions we need to address. We need to address them so you’ll remember the gravity of your behavior. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Will stroked a hand over Hannibal's forehead from behind, smoothing his hair out of his eyes. He was already sweating lightly, his hair damp with it. 

He turned his attention then to the two belts, running his fingers over each of them in turn. The first one was old and worn, braided leather, rough to the touch. This one he passed over Hannibal's head and passed horizontally between his teeth. “Bite down.”

Hannibal did, immediately, his lips already wet around the leather. Will pulled on the sides of the belt from behind, Hannibal's neck bending back slightly with the strain. He pulled his pocket knife out and clicked it open, noticing Hannibal go still at the sound, nostrils flared. 

“Shh.”

Will notched a new hole in the tail end, closer to the center. He fastened the buckle using the new hole, until it was tight around Hannibal's head, holding the leather securely in his mouth. Hannibal swallowed, Adam’s apple in stark relief against the grey-stubbled column of his neck.

Will, still pulling on the tail end of the belt with one hand, shut the knife again and put it back in his pocket with the other. He stroked his free hand over Hannibal's hair again then, whispering in his ear, “You're behaving so well. You’ve been _aching_ for discipline, haven't you.”

Hannibal shuddered under him.

Will stroked his hand down to Hannibal’s neck, where he squeezed, holding him tight enough to feel his pulse rippling under the skin. Hannibal let out a restrained, guttural sound.

Will let go and stood then, retrieving the second belt from where he'd left it on the floor. This was a finer one, polished smooth leather, a deep mahogany color. Hannibal had bought it for him online at some point and left it on Will’s side of the closet unbidden; they'd never talked about it, but it really wasn't unusual for Hannibal to just buy things for Will without asking. Will wondered whether he'd bought it in hopes of dressing Will up, taking him somewhere nice. He imagined what that would look like, in their current location. A potluck at the Banner Elk Lions Club lodge, perhaps. Bingo night at the Rotary Club. Christmas at home, just the two of them. That was the most likely. Will wanted it, in every place in his heart.

Or maybe he had more carnal desires in mind when he'd bought it ( _and weren't they all carnal desires with Hannibal?_ ). Maybe he was hoping for exactly this.

Standing behind Hannibal, just out of his line of vision, Will held the belt between two hands and pulled it tight, causing it to snap loudly.

Hannibal didn't react.

Will walked around to the front, holding the belt taut between his hands so Hannibal could see. Hannibal glanced at it, then returned to staring straight ahead calmly, though he was breathing fast, and his cock was as hard as Will had ever seen it, tenting his work pants obscenely.

“Good. Stay right there.”

Will left his field of vision to bring one of the armchairs over. It had come with the house, and the upholstery of it was awful, a rough-textured forest green, dinged with tiny navy diamonds at regular intervals. He placed it in front of Hannibal.

“You can move your arms. Lean them against the seat, and keep them there.”

Hannibal unlocked his shoulders and brought his arms around to support his weight against the chair’s cushion. The distance of the chair and his position elongated his back, pronouncing the saddled dip above his ass. He held his neck level and his hands one in the other, fidgeting and squeezing them together nervously. 

“Shh, be still. Do you trust that I’m going to take care of you?”

A deep breath followed by a quiet groan through the leather. His fidget stopped.

“Good.”

Will came up behind him and knelt. He kissed the small of his back, and the keloidal rampant boar’s head, and the notches of his upper spine. He laid himself almost on top of Hannibal, covering him with his own torso, arms on either side of Hannibal’s. He kissed up his neck, sucking a little along the bend of it, then into his hairline, ending at his ear, where he whispered, “Stay here. Stay with me.”

Hannibal breathed out through his nose and pressed his own torso up into Will’s. He was already warm, and the contact felt so good, so right. Will pulled back. “Be still.” Hannibal retreated again, whining quietly.

Still kneeling behind him, Will put his arms around Hannibal’s waist, undoing his fly for him and shoving his pants and briefs down around his thighs. He pointedly avoided any contact with Hannibal’s cock, though he could feel that the front of his underwear was already wet.

He ran a hand down Hannibal’s back, curving up and into the landscape of it. Ending at his ass, he gently stroked down one cheek, giving it a gentle squeeze, then repeated the action on the other side. Hannibal pushed back just slightly into the treatment, and Will pulled away and gave him a sharp slap.

“What did I say about staying still?”

Hannibal grunted in surprise, the sound wet and muffled by the leather. Will could hear his breathing pick up, and imagined his eyes were squeezed shut.

Will believed Hannibal was often torn between wanting to be present and fully experience things, and wanting to devote part of his mental energy towards building shrines and writing devotionals toward every experience. The inside of his head was a cabinet of reliquaries: saint’s bones, vials of holy blood, miniature golden hearts.

Will was going to do his best to close that cabinet today, to force Hannibal into this room with him _entirely_.

He stroked gently over the spot he’d slapped, right on the outside of Hannibal’s left cheek. It was already pinking beautifully. He wanted more.

“I’m going to start slow, with my hand. Just ten. You can handle ten.”

He gave a last stroke to Hannibal’s ass, then repositioned himself to the side and rested his right hand on the small of Hannibal’s back, feeling a tremor pass through it. Hannibal’s neck curled in to tuck his head between his forearms, fisted hands out in front.

Will pulled back with his left and slapped down hard without warning, right in the center of Hannibal’s right cheek. Hannibal didn’t react, except to breathe out hard through his nose.

“One.”

Again, on the left side, producing nothing but a harsh breath.

“Two.”

On the outer edge this time.

“Three.”

Hannibal was concentrating way too hard on restraining himself. That wouldn’t do. Will slapped him a fourth time, harder. Hannibal’s body rocked forward with the force of it. He finally gave a repressed grunt.

“Four.”

A fifth time, straight along the sensitive center.

“Five.”

Another grunt; louder and more satisfying, but still not enough.

“I want to hear you. Stop holding back. Six. Seven.”

Two hard, iambic slaps right in sequence, Will’s biceps warming up to this, shoving years of manual labor into his task.

Hannibal finally groaned, a deep, stretched sound. It was gorgeous, and Will didn’t care if it was an act. He was going to make sure it wasn’t an act by the end of this.

“Better.”

Two more, to the edge this time. “Eight. Nine.”

Hannibal grunted vocally with each one, and Will felt the muscles of his lower back twitch involuntarily.

“Ten.”

Right in the center again, and harder than any of the others. A higher, keening noise left Hannibal’s throat, only barely slowed by the leather gag.

Will kept his hand there, feeling how warm Hannibal’s ass already was. He massaged it gently, feeling the way his calluses pressed into the soft skin. Thinking about how heightened Hannibal’s senses must be. Wondering where he was, inside his own head. Too far, still.

Hannibal exhaled forcefully on a guttural grunt, all consonants.

“Your ass is so beautiful already, I wish you could see the color.”

Hannibal pushed back into Will’s hand again, unable to restrain himself at the praise.

Will kneaded a little harder, but kept his voice level. “You need to learn to be still, Hannibal, or you’ll make this worse for yourself. That’s ten more with the hand. And I’d better hear you.”

Hannibal moaned. If Hannibal was playing him, and past experience indicated that he probably was, it didn’t particularly matter to Will. They were both getting what they wanted out of this.

“Eleven.”

He started back up hard, and kept going hard, Hannibal grunting loudly with every slap. By thirteen, Hannibal was gasping, by fifteen, his ass was red and hot. By seventeen, he was obviously having a hard time staying still, ass and thighs twitching with the need to move towards Will, away from Will, it made no difference. At eighteen, a loud keen started building, and it crested at twenty, tapering off into a wet, groaning pant as Will finished.

Will massaged him gently again. “Good boy, you’re so good for me. I think you’re ready to move on now, don’t you?”

Hannibal was panting out with big, labored grunts now. Will imagined his hair hanging in his face, sweaty and lank, dripping onto the awful green upholstery of the chair.

“We’re doing ten with the belt now. You can handle that.”

Hannibal whined again. Will noticed a drop of fluid spill down onto the floor from his cock. Will’s own cock was throbbing, but he ignored it. It wasn’t the time. Later.

Will picked up the smooth, mahogany belt from where he’d left it on the floor next to Hannibal. He ran it through his fingers, getting the weight of it. He’d never done anything like this before; but then again, he’d never spanked anyone before 10 minutes ago.

What if it was too much? Would it break the skin? Would Hannibal like that? Would Will like that? He tried his best to quiet the tiny voice that crept up inside him and said _yes, and yes._

They could stop after five if it was too much. There was nothing wrong with stopping after five.

He took a deep breath, then supported himself against Hannibal’s back as he stood from where he was still kneeling next to him. Hannibal grunted with his weight. He snapped the belt in his hands again, loud enough for Hannibal to hear, to give him some warning. Hannibal just kept breathing hard. A drop of sweat rolled down his spine.

The leather snapped through the air and contacted Hannibal’s ass hard, with a cracking sound.

“One.”

Hannibal shouted, his head rising from its tucked position, neck suddenly curved and serpentine. _Oh._

“Two.”

A little lower, spreading the contact. Hannibal stayed tensed and shouted again, but softer, a mess of vowels. He was breathing hard. _This was more, this was so much more._

“Three.”

Big red welts were already rising everywhere the belt had struck. Will wanted to map them, to chart them, to name them, kiss them, to soothe them. To make them worse.

“Four."

Hannibal was letting out a continual stream of guttural noises now. The sound was wet and desperate and Will felt it at the base of his skull.

“Five.”

Another shout. _Good. This was so good. How had he not known this would be so good?_

“You’re doing beautifully.”

Hannibal returned his head to the chair cushion, breathing hard into the pool of saliva that was spreading under his chin.

“I know this hurts, but I want to see you take these last five. Can you take more?”

_“Gnnh.”_

“Tap the chair once for yes, twice for no.”

_“Gnnnnh.”_

“There will be no punishment if you say no.”

Hannibal untangled his right hand from where it was fisted tightly in his left, pushing into the cushion with his fingers _hard_ , just once, then returning it to its previous position, neck still curled tightly down to tuck his head between his hands.

Will stroked him gently again, over the hot, raised welts that were now a deep burgundy. They were going to bruise. “Okay. I believe you.” He leaned in close to kiss the base of his spine, smelling the adrenaline rolling off him.

He pulled back and snapped the belt again, just at the juncture of his thigh. It must have burned like a brand, if the guttural yell Hannibal gave was any indication.

“Are you close? Could you come like this, just like this?”

Hannibal grunted. His ass was flexing as he tried to keep his hips from reflexively thrusting into thin air.

“Don't. Seven.”

Another yell, and Hannibal’s flanks were practically shaking now with the need to move.

“Loosen up, it'll hurt more if you're tense. Or maybe you want that.”

Hannibal whined, and Will saw him let go, just a little. More precum pooled under him.

“Good. Eight.”

A hoarse whine now, reaching the end.

“Nine.”

The whine stretched out into vocal panting. Will wondered what Hannibal was concentrating harder on: staying still, or trying not to come. He was positive now that the jars and shelves of Hannibal’s mind were closed to him, that he was entirely here in this room; this soft, physical form, covered in sweat and broken blood vessels and saliva, degraded and whole and human.

“Ten.”

A final noise, from deep in in his chest, guttural and relieved.

Will was panting by now too, his cock uncomfortably hard in his pants. Hannibal’s ass was a woven mosaic of reds: darker burgundies crossing over crimsons and scarlets, softening into a pink flush around the edges, and then into the scarred white of his back and thighs. Breathing hard, Will kneeled down next to him again and ran a soft hand down all of it, feeling the heat radiating from his whole backside. He hadn’t broken the skin, not this time.

Will moved in close again to whisper in his ear, “You’re so good, Hannibal. You did so well.”

Hannibal whined at even the gentle touch.

“Do you want to come?”

A desperate noise. There was no consciousness behind it.

Will moved his hand to the front and wrapped it delicately around Hannibal’s swollen and jerking cock. He could feel the blood pounding through it, and Hannibal groaned louder at that light contact than he had at any point during the belting.

“Go ahead, you deserve it.”

Will stroked up to his cockhead and then back down, just twice, barely squeezing him, and Hannibal went off like a shot, his scream restrained by the wet leather still in his mouth. He heard a few spots in Hannibal’s spine pop as his whole body curled in on itself and tensed in waves through his orgasm.

Will stroked him through it, shh’ing in his ear as he came down. Hannibal sagged down heavily onto his forearms after it was over, his deep breaths slowing gradually.

“Good boy, good boy.”

There was no fight in Hannibal; he was a lamb on the altar.

Will reached up to gently undo the belt buckle at the back of his head. “Let go.” Hannibal unclenched his jaw to let the belt drop, a rush of saliva pooling out of his mouth after it. Will rested his hand against the back of Hannibal’s neck, stroking soothingly.

“Are you okay?”

Hannibal looked up and over at him, finally. His eyes were hazed and drowsy, his thoughts obviously muddy behind them, but he held Will’s eye contact and nodded, just twice. His hair was sticking up every way, and his mouth hung open, soft tongue just visible inside. His jaw had to be sore from clenching down so hard.

Will just stared back, looking between and into his eyes, until he was satisfied with what he found. He nodded back.

“Let’s get you cleaned up.”

He helped Hannibal out of his pants, then wrapped an arm around his upper torso to support him and help him up. Once they’d stood, Hannibal took a minute to get his bearings and recover the use of his knees, and Will let him, holding him steady.

He thought briefly about running a bath, but then realized how hard it might be for Hannibal to sit for that long. He walked them into the bathroom, then left Hannibal standing while he got into the shower stall, fully clothed, and ran the water until it was hot. He stepped out again, and then put his arm back around Hannibal, helping him step up into the shower. Hannibal closed his eyes and sighed when the hot water hit him.

Will put his arms around Hannibal and held him tight, pressed him against the soaking wet flannel on his chest. Hannibal held him back and burrowed his face into Will’s hair, breathing deeply and evenly.

They stood there together until the water ran cold.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> NB: For the purposes of this story, these boys don't have safewords yet, but please, please do set out ground rules and safewords before playing with anyone IRL. Consent and communication is everything.
> 
> Come say hi on Tumblr and Twitter!  
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